IT jobs overall to grow in U.S., but programming jobs slow: Report

Dive Brief:

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook predicts IT jobs will grow 12% over the next decade, CIO reports.
Programming jobs are the one exception. That occupation is predicted to shrink as more programming work is shifted to lower wage countries.
The number of computer programmers is expected to decline by 8% over the next 10 years.

Dive Insight:

In IT occupations overall, the U.S. is predicting a growth from 3.9 million to 4.4 million over the next 10 years. Programmers are focused on coding and implementing requirements, so they may be more susceptible to offshoring.

According to the National Science Foundation, the U.S. awarded about 48,000 computer science bachelor degrees in 2012, which is roughly equal to the number of jobs per year that all computer occupations will grow by.

Hal Salzman, a Rutgers University public policy professor, said he can’t see how the demand for IT workers, outlined in the BLS data, justifies bills in Congress to increase the number of visa workers by 180,000 or more.

“The math doesn’t seem to add up to support an increase at the magnitude provided in these new bills,” he said.