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Businesses say they just can't find the right tech workers

Jon Swartz
USA TODAY
US President Donald Trump speaks before signing a bill increasing funding for NASA in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on March 21, 2017.

Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this story gave the incorrect source and number for a projection of unfilled computing jobs . 

SAN FRANCISCO — Jobs creation has been the mantra of President Trump. But in some industries like tech, the U.S. doesn't need more jobs — it needs workers with more of the right skills.

There will be an estimated 1 million more computing jobs than applicants who can fill them by 2020, projects Code.org, based on estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on job creation and separately, estimates of college graduation rates by the National Science Foundation.

The problem: a "perception gap" between educators and employers has left scores of jobs unfilled, according to new research from the Career Advisory Board, which closely tracks the jobs market.

Only 11% of employers believe higher education is "very effective" in readying graduates to meet skills needed in their organizations, according to the January survey of 501 U.S. hiring managers, human resource specialists and executives. Some 62% said students were unprepared.

The jobs' gap is especially pronounced by age: 72% of respondents agreed that millennials are keeping pace with technology but only half of baby boomers are, said the survey.

There are more than 500,000 open computing jobs nationwide, but less than 43,000 computer science students graduated into the workforce last year, according to Code.org, a non-profit backed by the tech industry that's dedicated to expanding access to computer science.

Randi Zuckerberg, CEO of Zuckerberg Media, has discussed the skills gap in tech, and what employers and educators can do.

Last year, the White House claimed the federal government alone needed an additional 10,000 IT and cybersecurity professionals.

Trump has yoked his political success to creating new jobs. Many of the successes he's claimed have involved traditional manufacturing, a once steady and high-paid sector that's declined with automation and offshoring. This week, he touted the creation of 150 U.S. jobs at Ford Motor(moves in the works before his administration) and signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era climate change regulations in a bid to create more jobs for coal miners.

The availability of so many tech jobs — particularly in coding, the Internet of Things, big data and cybersecurity — presents an opportunity for Trump to make good on his promise to help frustrated workers while pursuing a $1 trillion infrastructure plan and major changes to the H-1B visa program, say educators and tech leaders.

"The jobs are already here," says Rob Paul, president of DeVry University, which conducted research online for Career Advisory Board and offers educational services that includes boot camps for tech skills. "Speed is of the essence in filling them."

The emergence of boot camps has slightly eased the problem in getting thousands of Americans up to snuff in skills for coding, Internet of Things, big data, cybersecurity and high-tech manufacturing, but doesn't go nearly far enough, say Paul and others.

"When I worked within Silicon Valley, it boggled my mind — there were so many available jobs," says Randi Zuckerberg, CEO of Zuckerberg Media, which is partnering with DeVry and others to "get kids, especially girls, excited" about science, technology and math. Zuckerberg's 6-year-old son took a course in robotics.

"A lot of progress is being made, but we need to ramp it up," says Zuckerberg whose brother, Mark, is Facebook CEO. "Every company now is really a tech company, with needs for social media, supply management and distribution. The jobs will grow exponentially."

A fertile area is data analysis: 59% of organizations expect to increase positions requiring data analysis skills over the next five years, according to the Society for Human Resource Management and the American Statistical Association.  Departments most in need are accounting and finance (71%), human resources (54%), and business and administration (50%), the report concluded.

Follow USA TODAY's San Francisco Bureau Chief Jon Swartz @jswartz on Twitter.

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