Computer science enrollments rise again by 10%
Interest in computer science continues to grow among undergrad students, who pushed enrollments up nearly 10% in the 2011-12 academic year. This marks the fourth straight year of increases.
The numbers might have been even higher if not for enrollment caps that some schools have put in place because they don't have enough faculty members, equipment or classrooms to meet demand, according to the Computing Research Association (CRA), which conducts the annual Taulbee survey.
"We don't have a way to gauge -- at least in the current survey -- how many students wanted to be admitted," said Peter Harsha, the CRA's director of government affairs. The association reported a 10% enrollment gain last year as well.
The steady gain in enrollments is a turnabout from what happened after the tech bubble burst in 2001. Read more...
Linux talent shortage drives up salaries
It pays to be a Linux expert, and if you have any needs that are not being met by your employer and you have Linux skills, now might be a good time to start making some demands.
The Linux Foundation, the non-profit consortium that fosters the expansion of Linux and which gives Linus Torvalds his paycheck, tag-teamed with Dice Holdings, the jobs posting site, to get a handle on what's going on out there in the Linux workforce in terms of salaries, benefits, and working conditions.
The deep sort on Dice's Linux-related data has been put together in a Linux Jobs Report by the foundation, which you can get here (PDF). The report is based on data from more than 2,300 IT managers in the corporate and government sectors and headhunters from around the world.
Across the respondents, 81 per cent told Dice that demand for Linux techies is on the rise, but finding Linux experts is "somewhat difficult". When demand exceeds supply, prices rise, as we all know from our Microeconomics 101 courses. Read more...
The top 10 H-1B visa users in the U.S.
Offshore outsourcing companies continued to make up the majority of the top 10 H-1B visa users in 2011, according to new government data. These offshore firms have been adding employees by the thousands as their revenues increase.
Cognizant, a New Jersey-based IT services provider with major operations overseas, led the list. The company had 4,222 initial or new visas approved and 1,493 renewal petitions.
Google was last on the list, with 383 new H-1B visas and 232 renewals.
Offshoring is showing signs of being a major political issue this year, but opinions remain divided.
President Barack Obama highlighted it in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. But he hasn't coupled offshore outsourcing with visa usage. One of the leading Republican candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, has called for eliminating the H-1B cap and says the cap policy is wrong.
The data for this story comes from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. One list shows new applications for H-1B visas; the second list shows the combined totals for new visas and renewals. A H-1B visa must be renewed every three years. Read more...
Black Friday E-Commerce Spending Up 26 Percent To A Record $816M; Amazon Most Visited Retailer
As we heard on Saturday, IBM reported a 24 percent increase in online sales for Black Friday this year. ComScore is announcing even stronger results for e-commerce, with Black Friday seeing $816 million in online sales, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011 and representing a 26 percent increase versus Black Friday 2010 ($648 million spent).
That’s an impressive jump considering the 2009 to 2010 increase in Black Friday spending was only 9 percent. Thanksgiving Day saw an 18 percent increase in online spending to $479 million. U.S. consumers have spent $12.7 billion already in the first 25 days of the November to December 2011 holiday season, up 15 percent from the corresponding days last year. Read more...
Yahoo revenue drops as display ad business slows
Yahoo's total revenue took a steep dive in the second quarter as it struggled in display advertising, a core market where it has historically been a leader. The company managed to increase its profit by 11 percent, however.
Total revenue for the three months ending June 30 declined 23 percent year on year to $1.22 billion, Yahoo announced Tuesday. Subtracting the advertising commissions and fees it pays to partners, net revenue came in at $1.07 billion, down 5 percent from 2010's second quarter and below the $1.11 billion consensus estimate from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Read more...
IT worker demand remains strong despite slow economy
U.S. tech hiring for the second half of 2011 will increase as the gradually improving economy results in companies updating their IT systems after scaling back during the recession, according to a hiring survey from technology job website Dice.com.
"Several years ago companies cut back pretty far, particularly in infrastructure and technology development," said Tom Silver, senior vice president of North America for Dice Holdings, who spoke about results from Dice.com's recent biannual hiring survey. "They're in a little bit of a state of catch-up ... in terms of their infrastructure and therefore the people they need in order to replace aging hardware and software and deal with security challenges." Read more...