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The demand for workers with information technology skills is high, creating a challenge for today's workforce system to train enough people. In response, nonprofit organizations and workforce development agencies have developed place-based training programs for information technology jobs. The intricate nature of these jobs necessitates innovative training approaches that address both technical proficiency and cultural competence. Drawing from interviews and case studies, this analysis highlights the importance of rigorous prescreening processes, structured support for graduates transitioning to employment, and collaboration with employers in ensuring the success and sustainability of place-based information technology training programs. It is recommended that programs incorporate these elements into their design to effectively meet the demands of the labor market and foster diversity and inclusion within the technology sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Despite reported psychological hazards of information technology (IT) work, studies of diagnosed mental health conditions in IT workers are lacking. We investigated self-reported mental health outcomes and incident anxiety/depression in IT workers compared to others in employment in a large population-based cohort. Methods We evaluated self-reported mental health outcomes in the UK Biobank cohort and incident diagnosed anxiety/depression through health record linkage. We used logistic regression and Cox models to compare the risks of prevalent and incident anxiety/depression among IT workers with all other employed participants. Furthermore, we compared outcomes within IT worker subgroups, and between these subgroups and other similar occupations within their major Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) group. Results Of 112 399 participants analyzed, 4093 (3.6%) were IT workers. At baseline, IT workers had a reduced odds (OR = 0.66, 95%CI: 0.52–0.85) of anxiety/depression symptoms and were less likely (OR = 0.87, 95%CI: 0.83–0.91) to have ever attended their GP for anxiety/depression, compared to all other employed participants, after adjustment for confounders. The IT technician subgroup were more likely (OR = 1.22, 95%CI: 1.07–1.40) to have previously seen their GP or a psychiatrist (OR = 1.31, 95%CI: 1.06–1.62) for anxiety/depression than their SOC counterparts. IT workers had lower incident anxiety/depression (HR = 0.84, 95%CI 0.77–0.93) compared to all other employed participants, after adjustment for confounders. Conclusions Our findings from this, the first longitudinal study of IT worker mental health, set the benchmark in our understanding of the mental health of this growing workforce and identification of high-risk groups. This will have important implications for targeting mental health workplace interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the job satisfaction of information technology (IT) professionals in an environment where computer aided software engineering (CASE) tools are used. Although the recent downturn in the economy might have temporarily eased the IT labor shortage, issues of recruitment and retention of qualified personnel are key to the success of IS development projects. This study presents a model of the combination of CASE tool usage and job satisfaction as related to internal career orientation. Two hypotheses based on this model were tested using empirical evidence collected through a survey method. The first examines whether the career orientation of IS personnel influences their job satisfaction. The second incorporates the impact of CASE tool usage on this relationship. The results indicate that in a CASE tool environment, personnel with a predominant technical career orientation have more job satisfaction than those with a predominant managerial orientation. However, there is a significant and positive synergy between the sophistication of the CASE tool used and managerial competence orientation leading to higher job satisfaction. These findings indicate that combating the IT personnel shortage through task automation may also increase worker satisfaction, thereby decreasing turnover. Careful selection of the CASE tool for use may result in this win-win situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Miss New Indiais the title of a 2011 novel by Indian-born (now American-based) Bharati Mukherjee, which tells the story of a young woman who leaves her small-town home and family to find work in a call centre in the information technology city of Bangalore. The call centre is emblematic of a ‘new India’, in which educated young people seize the possibilities of a global labour market. This is a generation for whom colonialism is ancient history, a generation who have grown up in the aftermath of economic liberalization in India. Chetan Bhagat refers to this generation as ‘Young India’ and has written a series of best-selling novels that feature ambitious young men in the ‘new India’. There is, however, an emerging genre of similar narratives written by women and addressed to a female readership. This article discusses a range of contemporary Indian women’s popular novels and argues that, while Bhagat and his male heroes may embrace globalization and the market, the narratives written by women are more nuanced in their celebration of economic liberalization. The novels dramatize the tensions between tradition and modernity, family and independence, and suggest that these are particularly fraught for young Indian women. These texts pick up on the discourses of contemporary journalism about ‘Young India’, within the generic form of the romance, but their resolutions are repeatedly uneasy and suggest that the ‘new India’ is not an entirely comfortable space for the new Miss India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How do workers build careers across organizations? We propose that increased worker mobility means that workers may now build their careers using interorganizational career ladders, working in certain kinds of organizations earlier in a career and in other kinds of organizations later in the career. We develop a matching framework that predicts such interorganizational moves based on how systematic changes in workers' needs and resources over the course of their careers alter the kinds of organizations they will best match. We specifically propose that workers will be more likely to work for organizations that provide more training early in their careers, and work for organizations that have higher demands for skills later in their careers. We use this argument to make three broad predictions: first, that interorganizational transitions are more likely to take place from larger to smaller workplaces, and into organizations in industries that employ a higher proportion of workers in the focal occupation; second, that such skill-based career paths are more common where the labor market provides more opportunities that reward those skills; and third, that the nature of external opportunities will disproportionately affect turnover from organizations on the lower rungs of the career ladder. Data from the career histories of college-educated information technology workers support our hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]