http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/all/990503A2D6

ComputerWorld

Letter
05/03/99 Tech Industry stuck in the Middle Ages


The so-called labor shortage is of the industry's own making. There is a
shortage of people with five years' experience in the hottest skills who
are willing to work 80-hour weeks. There should be -- they
self-destruct.


But there isn't a shortage of people who are hard-working, intelligent
and capable in the IT field. The problem is the industry's unwillingness
to employ part-time workers, its reluctance to let experienced workers
work in new technologies and its narrow focus on employing people based
on buzzwords rather than capability.


It's ironic that companies that claim to be establishing a new age of
doing business are still stuck in the Middle Ages when it comes to
employment practices.


Sheri Dumire-Hamilton
Rochester, N.Y.
sdumire@kodak.com