CMU Associate Professor posted: 2021 may usher in a shortage of software developers, especially senior developers

Will there be a shortage of software developers in 2021? Recently, an article like this appeared in the "ACM Newsletter" magazine, claiming that the upstream IT labor supply is tightening, the competition for high-skilled talents is intensifying, and the shortage of software developers is looming.

Under the influence of the COVID-19 epidemic, the global economy has been severely affected, but information technology (IT) companies have survived the difficulty, largely due to their past efforts in distributed IT development, remote IT operations, and remote maintenance. success. During the epidemic, IT companies required employees to work from home, and the work content and shifts were the same, so the company's operations were not greatly affected. In addition, in order to meet the needs of working from home, other markets such as retail, entertainment, education, and medical have increased demand for IT services, which has given the IT market more room for development.

Upstream IT labor supply is tightening

This is good news for IT companies, but the COVID-19 pandemic has also caused losses to the upstream supply of IT labor (especially software developers), and these effects may show up in talent recruitment and innovation in the next two to three years. Due to travel bans, limited access to education loans, and delays in student visa processing, the number of computer and information science students enrolled in US colleges and universities has fallen sharply this year. This decline translates into a one-year postponement, which means that there will be a temporary but significant drop in the graduation rate in 2021.

In 2019, more than 136,000 students were awarded bachelor, master and doctorate degrees in Computer and Information Science (CIS) by American universities. Among them, 35,200 degrees were awarded to non-resident foreigners, including 27,200 (77%) masters or doctorates, these graduates have higher skills.

However, a recent report by the American Council of Education (ACE) shows that according to a recent survey, the international student enrollment rate during the pandemic has dropped by 43%, resulting in a reduction of 11,700 CIS graduates in 2021, and will greatly affect industries with more than two years of age The number of experienced highly skilled graduates. Travis Breaux, Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Master of Software Engineering Project Leader
He said that it can be foreseen that the IT labor market will be tighter in the future, especially for high-skilled technical positions.

Increasing competition for highly skilled IT labor

Before the outbreak, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimated that there were 1,469,200 full-time software developers working in the U.S. in 2019, with an average salary of $107,510; the U.S. labor market will add 316,000 software developer positions in the next 10 years , The growth rate is as high as 22%, and an average of about 31,000 new jobs are created each year. In contrast, by 2029, the number of low-skilled programmer positions will be reduced by 9% to fewer than 193,800, indicating that the US labor market continues to shift to more skilled IT positions, including engineering practices such as software design, software construction, and maintenance Class position. The reduction of CIS graduates will bring thousands of job vacancies.

CMU's 2018 data review of the Students and Exchange Visiting Scholars Program (SEVP) found that among the top 200 employers with optional internship training (OPT) graduates, 61% are engaged in management consulting and information technology businesses, including retail, financial and Medical. This includes popular consulting companies such as Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG, as well as popular technology companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft. It is estimated that 46,700 new employees who have experienced STEM OPT worked in information technology-related fields in 2018. If this estimate is true, a reduction of 11,700 CIS graduates in 2021 could result in a 25% reduction in the number of such IT labors.

in conclusion

This article predicts that IT labor shortage will soon come, especially high-skilled labor. It is estimated that CIS graduates will fall by 11,700 in 2021, while software development positions will increase by 22%, which may result in thousands of vacancies or difficult to fill.

And this will also have an impact on the company: the additional difficulty of hiring skilled employees from a smaller labor supply may lead to a loss of productivity and a decrease in innovation. So, how can companies creatively hire and retain highly skilled employees? This article provides two strategic steps: establishing a dual career path that helps employees grow, and investing in employee education and training.

Original link: https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/7/253461-the-2021-software-developer-shortage-is-coming/fulltext#R5