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Most novice programmers seldom see the necessity of drawing a flowchart - Rodney Zaks - Programming the Z80
UK IT sagging without women
THE UK IT INDUSTRY must urgently attract more women to stem an alarming decline in its fortunes, according a report published by e-Skills, the government's IT skills quango.
UK's IT talent was diminishing at an alarming rate, said the Gartner report, UK Skills Implications. The industry needs to recruit more women to improve its competitive position with the rest of the world. It had become a " national imperative" that the UK expanding its IT talent pool to include more women, it said. Tackling the "increasingly disproportionate" numbers of men in the IT industry was vital.
"Gender balance in IT is not only an issue of social equality," apparently. "Rather it is central to the viability of an industry that does not have strong appeal among 51 per cent of the population". The industry recognised this, it said, but had done nothing to change its recruitment practices in order to attract and retain more women. Gartner called for "a new approach".
E-Skills quango received the report from Gartner in January. It waited ages to publish it, it then failed to inform the press about the findings. It made no reference to the crisis in the short statement it put on its website on 1 April.
The quango, which has held responsibility for improving the skills base of the IT workforce since 2005, is about to re-tender for its contract with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
The Gartner report said industry had tried to solve its skills crisis by contracting work to offshore service providers, but the trend had run out of steam. "As IT moves from being an industrial commodity to a domestic differentiator, the IT industry faces the need to rebuild the skills of its on shore workforce, particularly in emerging areas such as analytics, information management, design and innovation," said the report (their emphasis).
The last figures e-Skills published on gender in IT showed that the proportion of women in IT had languished at about 18 per cent since the turn of the millenium. The telecoms industry was facing an additional crisis: much of its workforce was reaching retirement age. µ
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What's all the fuss about? They are not ringing the alarm bells to hire more male nurses are they? More male waiters? How about male fashion designers? Every visited offices in uhm...say Ted Baker? 80% female...what's alarming about this is beyond me... It's not that women are not technically able, they are simply naturally inclined to ENJOY other fields. Ask most teenaged females if they want to learn computer programming, forget the fact most teenaged boys will be put off by the idea... Why are women out numbered in the field of math at least 10 to 1 (or worse) Does that mean we urgently need more female mathematicians?? SHIVER ME TIMBERS AND RUFFLE ME FEATHERS, WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH FEMALE PIRATES ARRRRRGH!!!!
Last I checked, there were laws dealing with sexism and hiring. I personally think men and women are different. So maybe a common difference is that women don't like this type of work and men do. I don't think this is an emergency or disaster. Saying that there isn't a near 50% workforce comprised of women being a disaster is like saying that less than 2% of men breastfeed.
most women do not want to work in the IT industry.... there I said it! and it has nothing to do with anything except the simple fact they do not like IT and do not wanna work in that kind of area... just like I do not want to work in the "marketing" or "human resources" which as far as I know is women and "gay" biased.. (what every time I speak to an HR GUY he has that funny sounds like a girl sound"
Cant blame them for wanting to leave this industry. I guess they smelled the roses in IT and found them lacking with outsourcing, reshuffling, relocation, idiot managers, pink plips and so on. That leaves us stupid males as hanging onto these jobs. If they did not go into IT, where did they go (might want to try that out myself).
In related news: there is a declining number of males in the child care industry. Weird how no one is making headlines with it. Just accept that there are things that women are more adept in and there are things that men are more adept in. This is by no means a rule, I'm not saying ALL of them, only in general the majority are. Could we please move beyond negative sexism onto a more productive society?
"Rather it is central to the viability of an industry that does not have strong appeal among 51 per cent of the population." Oh, great... you know, garbage collecting probably doesn't have strong appeal among 51% of the population either, but are the knackers trying to attract women to that industry? This whole crap about every sub-group having to have the same sexual/racial/whatever makeup as the general population is total fools nonsense. Oh, gawd, there aren't any women on the UXO (unexploded ordinance) teams either, so lets rush out and waste good money trying to attract women into that, shall we? Stupid leftists, when are you going to realize that everyone other than yourselves are unique individuals with unique talents and contributions, instead of fretting over some alleged inequalities?
Sing it to the choir, Mark Ballard; whilst my bagpipes gently(?) weep. I must urgently attract any wom(a)(e)n to stem an alarming decline in my fortunes! A U-KIT would be topgear. The lass wouldn't need know everything about IT; just how to chat outright in Blightyish. Fit birds only.
As a young IT graduate working in an office of about 600 people (550 of which are balding, chubby, middle aged men), I fully condone the drive to attract more women to the industry!
And without being funny - a lot of the work in Computing is to do with plain, simple logic. 80% of Women are pretty much incapable of that trait.
Clearly we need to increase the attractiveness of the IT industry to MEN not women. I agree with others that women simply don't find IT interesting. How many women do you see reading computer magazines? How many women mess about with computers as a hobby? How many women discuss computers in their spare time.
A lack of female assembly-line workers must also be the reason why the UK auto industry has been in decline... perhaps having more women win that job will 'help' that industry... LOL. To say that an industry is declining due to *gender balance* is downright DAFT.
Also... Tom's statement "As a young IT graduate working in an office of about 600 people (550 of which are balding, chubby, middle aged men)," just made me think of something... perhaps the way to attract more women is to have more *attractive* male IT people. Perhaps the solution is to have programs to help men in IT to be fit, healthy and charming.
Women leave IT because it is infiltrated with male chauvanists and bullies. I should know because I am a female who worked in the IT industry for almost 15 years. I had very good technical skills before I left and come from a highly successful family of marine and mechanical engineers. I now drive a taxi for a living and I'd rather be 'beaten up' and stabbed rather and go back into the IT industry again. I addition to my taxi company I also runs another business and my salary is now £60K+ a year. I was too thick to realise that working for someone else was a complete 'waste of time'. I must have been a self employed person trying to escape a 'rat race' of vicious 'no marks'. Can't work with a team anymore as a result of the compulsive bullying that I endured whilst in the IT industry.
Would you contact the author to tell him your story?
Well IT is such a guy industry, no wonder there are issues with women not being attracted to the IT people. I also attract women with a dating course from Alex Nova. http://www.attractwomen.com.au/