he local high-tech boom has created thousands of technical jobs, but a lack of qualified workers is causing some companies to curtail expansion plans and amend growth projections.
Perpetuating the situation is the lack of training programs to provide the skills these new jobs require, say officials monitoring the issue.
“The difficulty in filling spots has altered and changed the business plans and reduced efficiencies at many, many San Diego companies,” said Eric Bruvold, director of government relations for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp.
Bruvold said because of the tight labor market for computer engineers, programmers and other skilled technical jobs, employers have resorted to increasing wages, paying signing bonuses, boosting stock option plans, and giving out other perks to attract candidates.
Yet those incentives still aren’t enough in many cases to fill vacancies.
– SAIC Has 200
Positions Open
At Science Applications International Corp., the San Diego-based information technology giant with more than 4,000 local employees, there are about 200 current job openings ranging from software programmers, systems analysts, and other technical positions.
Emitte Scruggs, SAIC’s director of staffing, said the lack of qualified applicants for these jobs caused the company to institute an internal training program that has graduated about 50 people. Unfortunately, the program is located at SAIC’s Virginia office, not in San Diego.
At Stellcom Inc., a San Diego high-tech engineering consultant that has added some 100 employees in the last eight months, the company growth is so rapid it has retained a full-time recruiter.
“It’s definitely an employee’s market,” said John Granger, Stellcom’s director of training. “Highly qualified, highly skilled workers are always in demand, and in this market are difficult to find. There’s more engineering jobs in San Diego than there are engineers to fill them.”
To fill the skill void, dozens of training programs have sprung up, most of them geared to providing basic technical skills for many entry-level jobs being created by the high-tech boom, or providing upgraded computer skills for a wide variety of jobs.
– Upgrading Computer
Application Skills
At Foundation College in San Diego last year, about 1,000 people took classes in computer application skills. A majority of the students were already working and taking the classes to upgrade their skills, said Jim Durbin, the private school’s president.
“These are really the front-line workers we’re talking about, and could range from a receptionist to a secretary to middle managers,” Durbin said. “We may start a class of 80 people, and there will be people (holding) 50 to 60 different jobs.”
Other programs are aimed at giving people more advanced technical skills associated with specific computer operating systems such as Microsoft, Novell or Cisco Systems.
The San Diego area has several community colleges offering these programs, including Mesa College, which has had a Microsoft certified training program since last year, and Cuyamaca College, which offers certificate training for Cisco Systems Networks.
Al Taccone, dean of Mesa’s business computer studies and technologies, said the Microsoft certification program has been enormously popular, with available student openings filling up by the first day.
“This past semester we had about 60 students waiting outside the door, hoping that someone would drop out,” Taccone said.
– Training For A
Career Change
Many of the students enrolled in the program already have bachelor’s degrees and experience in other fields, and are looking at making a career switch, he said.
“They’ve seen the current job market and how good it is,” Taccone said.
The money paid to these technical workers gets many people’s attention. A recent national salary survey of information-technology jobs show those holding Microsoft-certified engineering certificates were earning between $51,000 and $56,300 annually.
Last year, a local salary survey of high-tech jobs conducted by the Eastridge Group found even junior level programmers in notoriously low-paying San Diego were averaging $38,027. Network engineers averaged $50,000, and software engineers averaged nearly $67,000 annually.
– Private Companies
Offer Specific Classes
Along with the few publicly supported programs, private companies also are providing classes in customized vendor-specific training.
MicroSkills is one such provider. The company opened in the Miramar area last September.
While some students taking courses at MicroSkills have bachelor’s or associate’s degrees, the program doesn’t require any academic credentials.
Bart Saxey, MicroSkills director, said because the job market in the information-technology industry is so tight, more companies aren’t demanding applicants have bachelor’s degrees in computer science or electrical engineering.
“There is no way we’re going to fill the shortage if they have to take four years to tool these people up. It’s just not quick enough,” Saxey said. “These are more skill-based jobs than degree-based jobs.”
Saxey said while college graduates have a leg up in obtaining better-skilled technical jobs, the most sought-after requirement is hands-on working experience, something the certificated programs provide. It’s like hiring someone to operate a heavy crane without ever getting into the machine’s driver’s seat, he said. Employers want to know you’ve done it before and have more than theoretical knowledge, he said.
– Tuition Expenses
Could Be Costly
The tuition for certification programs such as MicroSkills isn’t cheap, with costs ranging from $7,000 to $17,000 depending on the number of levels a student wants to obtain.
Saxey said prospective students should be aware that while some private programs say they offer Microsoft certified certificate training, not all actually have the certification, nor are legally licensed by the state.
The number of job openings and lack of qualified applicants is forcing some companies to import foreign trained workers through a federal H-1B visa program. Qualcomm Inc., with some 7,000 employees, said it employed about 500 workers through the program two years ago.
Next month, the Workforce Partnership plans to apply for a federal grant to provide the training necessary for local workers to qualify for the technical jobs now being offered to foreign workers.
Larry Fitch, president of the Workforce Partnership, said part of the reason behind the lack of skilled workers , and publicly funded training programs to produce these workers , is the incredibly fast growth of the high-tech industry here.
“We were all caught by surprise at how fast technology has boomed in the past couple years,” Fitch said.
Fitch and others in the skill-training industry agree more funding must be directed to programs geared to creating qualified engineers and technical workers. The partnership, which gets all its budget from the federal government, currently doesn’t provide funding for such a program.
“We can’t send (unemployed workers) to places that don’t exist,” Fitch said. “We don’t have a lot (skilled technical training) out there, so we’re going to have to build it.”
Program Aims to Cut Number Of Foreign Workers
A prototype skills training program geared to the kinds of technical jobs now being filled by imported foreign workers may be started in San Diego later this year.
The San Diego Workforce Partnership, the regional job training agency, plans to apply for a $3 million federal grant next month to help finance the program, said David Moore, director of marketing for the SDSU Foundation.
The program is specifically aimed at providing skilled training to local workers to offset the dependency of some local firms in hiring foreign born workers. Companies, including Qualcomm Inc., said they are forced to hire these workers through the federal H1-B visa program because they cannot find qualified workers in this area.
If the funding is granted, the program would be operated at SDSU’s Defense Conversion Center. Launched in 1994, the center is geared to retraining the large number of laid-off workers from the area’s defense and aerospace industries.
To date, some 1,100 people have enrolled at the center, with 80 percent of those finding new jobs with an average salary of $52,000, according to a center fact sheet.
“We were just approved for funding for our fifth year,” Moore said of the budget allocation of $4.8 million.
The partnership will be the lead applicant for the training grant, but will be joined by SDSU’s Defense Conversion Center; Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District; Biocom; Qualcomm and SAIC.
Funding for the program would come from the fees paid by firms when foreign workers are hired. Should the grant be approved, the training program could be in place by the end of this year, Moore said.
