2010: The Future of Jobs and Innovation

Even though some IT jobs will continue to move overseas by 2010, the United States will still have a sizable population of IT professionals doing high-level work on strategy, implementation and design.

By the year 2010, Intel CIO Doug Busch envisions himself managing an IT staff that’s all over the map, literally. Not only will his employees be working in places ranging from Rio Rancho, N.M., to Parsippany, N.J., in the United States, they’ll also reside in Beijing, Leixlip, Haifa, Penang and a host of other locations Busch has never even been to. Each spot will specialize in a particular area of expertise for the company’s IT department -- call centers in Manila, business analysis at company headquarters in Santa Clara, application development in Mumbai. And a full roster of career opportunities -- from entry level to senior leadership -- will exist at each and every location.

"Talent will rise to the top, wherever it is," Busch predicts.

Busch’s scenario may sound a bit like corporate IT’s version of "It’s a Small World." But the CIO of the world’s leading computer chip maker already oversees IT workers in 27 countries around the globe. And most CIOs (to differing degrees) are headed in that direction.

The part of the picture that strays furthest from Disneyland is what this means for American IT staff. Even without offshore outsourcing, U.S. IT staffing levels were never going to return to their prerecession highs. The automation of tasks, increased productivity and a reluctance to return to the unfettered IT budgets of yore pretty much guarantee that the demand for American IT professionals is destined to decline. But, incendiary conjectures to the contrary, the entire population of IT workers in this country will not be replaced by counterparts in emerging economies.

Instead, even as 2010 will see a further movement of some IT activities -- application development, legacy maintenance, call center operations -- overseas (Forrester Research estimates that the cumulative number of IT jobs heading abroad will grow from 27,171 in 2000 to 472,632 in 2015), U.S.-based companies will keep work here that requires close contact with the business: strategy development, business process improvement and the actual application of IT to the business.

The net result: There will still be a future in IT for smart young Americans. But the higher-level IT positions that remain stateside will require new skills. Today’s CIOs would be wise to encourage broader business education in U.S. IT degree programs. And increased government and corporate support of IT R&D will be critical to retaining America’s position as the world’s IT leader.