3.1: Workforce
A Workforce of Cyber Innovators Other Information:
Tomorrow’s workforce will have to be agile, adaptable, well educated and trained, and able to keep learning continuously to
take maximum advantage of technological advances and contribute to American innovation. This applies not only to cyber professionals,
who even today struggle to stay current with their rapidly changing and advancing field, but to professional and technical
workers in every sector. Where we are now: A 2009 study conducted for the NITRD Program notes that two IT-related occupations
– network systems and data communications analyst, and computer applications software engineer – are among the five fastest-growing
in the U.S. economy, and the only two of the five to require a college degree. According to BLS projections reported in the
study, the professional and technical workforce in networking and computing should expand by more than 1.2 million, or 24
percent, to 3.5 million between 2006 and 2016. The professional/technical workforce over all is expected to grow by 17 percent
over the same period. Projections that include IT-related jobs that do not necessarily require a college degree (such help
desk specialists, electronic records processors, tellers, etc) double the size of the IT workforce in 2016. By contrast, the
number of computer science and electrical engineering degrees at all levels has been declining since 2004, as has the percentage
of degree holders who are U.S. citizens or residents. Government and private-sector employers alike report difficulty finding
people with the requisite IT skills. Labor market projections for the IT workforce, however, do not capture the reality that
a very broad range of occupations increasingly involves applications that require IT knowledge and skills. Nor can statistical
projections serve as a guide for assessing the adequacy of the educational system to prepare a workforce that leads the world
in advanced innovation. Research and education needs: Information technologies are interdependent and are developed from an
inherently multidisciplinary basis in the sciences and in engineering. Building systems and large-scale applications takes
teamwork across diverse technologies and academic fields. Moreover, IT capabilities are used in a wide variety of social contexts
that IT professionals also need to understand in order to create and use applications effectively. For example, in the 1990’s
the lack of professionals trained in both computer science and biology prompted NIH to establish the Nation’s first graduate
fellowship programs in bio-informatics; as a result, such training is now part of the curriculum at many graduate and medical
schools. The PCAST argued in its 2007 NITRD review that the traditional disciplinary stovepipes of the formal educational
system present a substantial barrier to development of diversified, broadly interdisciplinary new generations of cyber innovators.
We need advances in thinking about how to organize education and training curricula and experiences, particularly at the postsecondary
level, to help students develop the intellectual capacity to synthesize knowledge from multiple disciplines and work collaboratively
on complex interdisciplinary problems, whether the setting is IT for advanced manufacturing or for a regional social services
delivery system.
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