Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates asks a conference of university professors why students aren’t choosing programming courses.
Why aren’t more students entering the computer science field, asks the Chief Software Architect of Microsoft. According to an AP report, Mr. Gates doesn’t know why students who exist on the cutting edge of technology don’t want to be part of technology’s future.
It’s a surprising question. Mr. Gates has been very vocal in his calls for raising H-1B caps, if not eliminating them altogether, to allow for the hiring of more foreign workers. Those calls have come in spite of Microsoft’s meager increase of 500 net jobs from 2003 to 2004, according to the company’s SEC filings.
HP reportedly will begin laying off thousands from its global work force, in a move widely reported last week. Analysts call for losses of 5,000 to 25,000 jobs. And IBM announced job cuts of some 13,000 positions worldwide. The New York Times later cited a confidential IBM memo stating the company was preparing to create 14,000 new jobs, though. In India.
Numerous workers in the tech industry, particularly in California’s Silicon Valley, have lost jobs and have no prospects of reentering the field. Many of those jobs move to low-wage countries paying a fraction of a US-based salary. If a number of C programmers with valuable experience can’t find jobs, do new engineering graduates face better prospects?
Corporations have defended moves offshore. And for shareholders who have seen their value increase while companies see productivity and profits increase, there isn’t any motivation for employers to create new jobs in the US. What executive wants to anger shareholders by increasing company costs?
There aren’t any easy answers to the issues of tech employment and unemployment. But it seems like there are better questions to be asked than “why aren’t students entering the programming field?”
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
