are projected to grow by 29.5 percent, from 648,000 to 839,000. The projected growth across all occupations, both IT and non-IT, is 14.4 percent, or 1.3 percent per year. ²⁹

Within the group, jobs for computer engineers and scientists will increase by 103.4 percent, and those for systems analysts by 93.6 percent. Computer engineers and scientists are further broken down into computer engineers (107.9 percent increase), computer support specialists (102.3 percent increase), database administrators (77.2 percent increase), and all other computer scientists (117.5 percent increase).³⁰ Overall, the top five fastest-growing occupations between 1998 and 2008 are expected to be computer engineers, computer support specialists, systems analysts, database administrators, and desktop publishing specialists.

In recent years, BLS projections have consistently underestimated the number of IT jobs that the economy will create. In particular, it is possible to compare the BLS projections of computer programmers, systems analysts, and computer scientists and engineers made in 1996 for 1998 with the actual reported numbers for 1998.³¹ An analysis of these 1996 BLS projections indicates that they were about 93 percent of the actual 1998 figures. Furthermore, the annual growth rate in these occupations (taken in aggregate) implied by the 1996 projection was 5.0 percent, whereas the growth in actual employment from 1996 to 1998 reflected a 9.6 percent annual growth rate.

What is responsible for such underestimation? While the BLS does provide comprehensive public-domain occupational forecasts, these forecasts are based on procedures that are subject to significant methodological criticism. For example, the procedures assume a fixed relationship in each industry between the number of jobs and total person-hours. This is

Front Matter (R1-R28)

Executive Summary (1-20)

The IT Sector: Context and Character (21-43)

Understanding the IT Workforce (44-91)

Characterizing the Workforce Problem (92-132)

Older IT Workers and Possible Age-Related Discrimination (133-151)

Foreign Workers in the IT Workforce (152-187)

Making More Effective Use of the Existing IT Workforce (188-219)

Longer-Term Strategies for Increasing the Supply of Qualified Labor: Training and Education (220-272)

Sunthesis, Principles, and Recommendations (273-314)

Appendix A: Biotechnology (315-330)

Appendix B: Estimating the Size of the IT Workforce (331-343)

Appendix C: Study Committee Biographies (344-350)

Appendix D: Briefers to the Committee (351-356)

Index (357-370)