Vint Cerf on CS research

Vint Cerf discussed challenges in networking and opportunities in computer science.

CNN: CS starting salaries up, CE down

Computer science starting salaries for undergraduates will increase to $51,292 this year, up 2.6%, while computer engineering is dropping 2% (to $51,496) and information sciences by 0.8% to $43,732, says CNN.

CRA: "Interest in CS as a Major Drops Among Incoming Freshmen"

According to the CRA, an analysis of results from a survey conducted by HERI/UCLA indicate that the fraction of incoming undergraduates that plan to major in CS declined by over 60 percent between the Fall of 2000 and 2004, and is now 70 percent lower than its peak in the early 1980s. Women's interest dropped 80 percent between 1998 and 2004, and 93 percent since its peak in 1982.

Results from CRA's Taulbee Survey show that the number of newly declared CS majors has declined for the past four years and is now 39 percent lower than in the Fall of 2000.

SearchCIO also discusses the issue, but stressing that the reduction may have kept less-interested students from enrolling in Computer Science.

Far Eastern Economic Review: "The Next Wave of Offshoring"

The Far Eastern Economic Review, an English monthly newsmagazine published by Dow Jones in Hong Kong for the past 60 years, writes about outsourcing primarily in information technology. Among the predictions is that 60% of all U.S. software jobs could be moved oversees. The reason: it increases world wealth (including that of the U.S.) and lowers prices. "Every dollar of spending that U.S. companies transfer to India creates $1.46 in new wealth, according to McKinsey & Co. research. India keeps 33 cents of that gain, while the U.S. keeps $1.13 for every dollar spent on offshoring." "Hardware and software prices will continue to drop as more computers are built in China and more software code written in India, according to the Institute for International Economics."

Some other quotes:

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: "By the end of 2005, one of every 10 jobs at U.S. information technology vendors and service providers will have moved offshore."

Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel: "I don't think most people appreciate the magnitude of the change in the world's workforce. Over the next 10 years you are going to see major, major dislocation."

Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley: "We're now outsourcing investment banking to Mumbai. I don't know why we would ever hire another software programmer in New York again."

InformationWeek: IT Employment On Upswing

InformationWeek "Unemployment among IT workers stood at an annualized rate of 3.7% for the four quarters ended March 31, according to an InformationWeek analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data issued late last week. A year earlier, IT unemployment hit a post-boom high of 5.5%." "The two IT job categories to see the biggest percentage of year-to-year employment growth are database administrators and network and computer systems administrators, increasing at an annualized rate of 28% and 19%, respectively. The biggest drops came from network-systems and data-communications analysts, down 7%, and computer programmers, off 4% for the year." "The size of the IT workforce--those employed and seeking work in IT--rose last quarter by 22,000 to an annualized level of 3.51 million at the end of the first quarter, a 1.2% increase from the previous quarter."

New York Times: "A Blow to Computer Science Research"

"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon - which has long underwritten open-ended "blue sky" research by the nation's best computer scientists - is sharply cutting such spending at universities, researchers say, in favor of financing more classified work and narrowly defined projects that promise a more immediate payoff." New York Times, April 2, 2005

IEEE USA: "Offshoring Is Major Cause of Technical Unemployment"

A survey among US IEEE members reported that offshoring is the second-highest cause of unemployment among U.S. technical professionals. "The leading cause of unemployment, cited by 62 percent of U.S. IEEE members who reported being laid off, was a business downturn. Fifteen percent reported that their jobs were transferred offshore, while 10 percent pegged merger or acquisition as the cause of their layoff." "Other findings reveal that 37 percent of the 988 respondents said they considered leaving engineering entirely, and 41 percent said they would not recommend the profession to their children."