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Does Dot Bomb Continue to Burn BC?

By crooky | February 4, 2008

During the peak of Dot Com fever, I was living in Ottawa and Vancouver - both homes (at the time) to some of the most over-hyper software and IT companies in North America. I lived through my friend dropping out of their undergrad Computer Science degrees to take six figure jobs with Nortel or starting up .com companies that made them “on paper” millionaires overnight. I was regarded as a chump for sticking with my social science education despite the fact that I am half IT geek (on my dad’s side). I stiffled a few chuckles as these friends who had ridiculed my career choices lost their jobs in 2001 and their “on paper” money evaporated. Most of them have never caught up to me in the long run. However, those who stuck it out are back in the money. The IT and software industry in BC is booming and those with the skills are in demand.

However, I’ve heard a lot of talk these past few weeks about how there is a programmer skill shortage in BC (and in the rest of Canada). The media has put some of the blame on “dot bomb” - people who might have thought about doing a computer science degree in 2001, 2002, 2003 decided on other careers because ITC was in the toilet in BC (thanks to “dot bomb”). Now that things have picked up, there are too few new ITC geeks in the new graduate pool. Doh!

I spent some time this afternoon looking for mainstream media articles that actually make this claim but the newest I could find was almost three years old. I did find an interesting white paper on the IT skills shortage that tries to debunk some of the myths around the perceived IT skills shortage with the following points:

1. There is a real labour supply shortage in IT in Canada and offshoring will not solve the problem.

2. There has been a lot of churn in terms of platform technologies in the IT industry and the existing base of IT professionals in Canada just need to retrain.

3. There is no IT hub in Canada comparable to the Silicon Valley in the US to attract the best candidates.

4. There is no innovation culture in Canada to get people excited about ITC.


I don’t 100% agree with these points. They seem more anecdotal and politicized than based on actual fact. I think the fact remains that the events of the early part of this decade left a sour taste about IT in some peoples’ mouths (investors and potential students alike). It’s believable that this is leading to a critical skills shortage. I’m not sure why offshoring gets thrown into this argument. I believe that over the years, we have learned a lot about offshoring and recognize that it’s not always a cookie cutter solution to domestic labour shortages.

I agree that Vancouver and BC are not strong enough hubs to attact the world’s most gifted programmers but do we need to emulate Silicon Valley to do well? I have my doubts. We have a world-class New Media cluster here in BC. BC’s goal should be to find IT niches (like gaming and new media) and exploit them. Trying to create an artificial generalist IT hub in Vancouver is too difficult to take seriously as a policy solution.

I take the point about the innovation culture here in Canada. We do suffer from a very muted entrepreneur gene here in Canada - I’ve bitched about it plenty enough over the years. However, that’s still .com thinking. A lot of people are looking for good jobs with good pay and benefits. You don’t get those by sticking your neck out and trying to start the next Microsoft from your garage. So how would a strong innovation culture push people who want salaried IT jobs into that career? I don’t think it would.

Most writing I’ve seen on the skills shortage revolves around a Sapphire (formerly CNC Global) report on IT skills shortage. If you go to their website and check out the news room - that’s all you can find: stories about IT skills shortages. Doesn’t it seem a little self serving that a company that places IT professionals is the voice that many Canadian news outlets listen to and quote for IT Labour Market Information? I find it fishy - especially since I can’t find any other evidence pointing to an IT skills shortage in Canada.

I’m not suggesting that there is no demand for IT professionals - just that we haven’t reached a crisis point yet. But, if you like getting freaked out - go ahead. Smash open someone’s head and feast on the soft goo inside. The Armageddon cometh!

What should we do at the September 12 CERN LHC Armageddon party in Vancouver?

  • Dark Matter Eating Contest (33%, 13 Votes)
  • Drunken Bocce (26%, 10 Votes)
  • Burn down HR Macmillan Space Centre (23%, 9 Votes)
  • Karoke (18%, 7 Votes)

Total Voters: 39

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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.

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Topics: Policy, Technology |

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