3.1: Workforce
A Workforce of Cyber Innovators Other Information:
A Workforce of Cyber Innovators -- 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 the Bureau of Labor Statistics (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 National Institute of Health (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.22 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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