Portland’s Tech Industry Could Grow Under Obama Program
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
The initiative is part of the President’s agenda to strength middle-class America through education and training for high demand and high wage jobs.
Taking the reins in Portland is the online training program, Code Oregon. Initiated and funded by Worksystems, the local Workforce Development Board, with support from the State of Oregon, Code Oregon aims at teaching 10,000 Oregonians how to code and find high paying careers in fields such as software and web development, as well as app design.
The Skills Gap
Today, there are 2,400 technology jobs currently open in the Portland metro region. These jobs can be viewed on Portlandtech.org, a website developed by Worksystems.
According to Worksystems, “By 2020, there will be one million more computer programming jobs in the U.S. than workers to fill them, and 10,000 of those jobs will be in the Portland metro region.”
Code Oregon’s mission is to build the region’s future IT workforce by closing the city’s skills gap and preparing Portlanders for careers in technology.
“There’s thousands of jobs available right now that our traditional methods are not able to fill,” says John Gardner, Director of Business Services. “And you can only recruit so much talent to the region before you need to look local.”
Software and business consulting company, Metal Toad is a partner of Code Oregon.
“In terms of development,” says talent manager Randi King, “we’re only at two percent employment.”
The Bigger Picture
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need an advanced degree in computer science to work in IT. Hundreds of thousands of IT jobs – among them cybersecurity, network administration, software development – require skills that can be learned in community colleges or at coding boot camps, and through certified training programs and online courses.
“The average salary in a job that requires information technology skills – whether in manufacturing, advertising, retail or banking – is 50 percent higher than the average private-sector American job,” states TechHire’s website.
Yet currently, there are over half a million unfilled IT jobs in all sectors across the country. With five million job openings nation-wide, IT jobs make up 12 percent of them. That means there more open jobs in IT than in any other sector in the country.
Portland, along with 20 other regions that include Nashville, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Detroit, have 120,000 available IT jobs and more than 300 employer partners in need of IT workers.
Ahead Of The Curve
But Portland was slightly ahead of the President’s agenda. Having already initiated Code Oregon last summer, Worksystems was in the best position to lead the Portland branch of the nationwide effort TechHire.
Since its soft launch, 5,256 people in the Portland area have signed up to participate in Code Oregon. The courses are free and delivered by the local interactive education platform, Treehouse, which teaches programming languages including iOS, Android, HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and more.
The focus of the courses is also to connect underrepresented populations, such as communities of color, women, the elderly and veterans, to training.
Courses can take between six to 12 months. Afterwards, graduates of Code Oregon are connected to local technology jobs through WorkSource, the public workforce system and member of America’s Job Center Network.
But yet, “the big challenge is the gap between educating people through Code Oregon and getting them employed, which requires a great deal of engagement by the industry,” says Chris Harder of the Portland Development Commission, which also helps match employers to training and education programs. “Those conversations are still in the early stages.”
As a sponsor for workforce-related initiatives, like TechHire, the PDC says attracting talent is key to local industry growth, which is why they backed TechTown Portland, a networking organization aimed at bringing together tech workers and companies.
“We’re committed to creating broader, shared prosperity among Portland residents,” says Harder. “So training and connecting more people to high-paying technology jobs dovetails with our mission to foster a more equitable city.”
Code Oregon aims at preparing a newly trained group of professionals every month. The intent is to connect them with on-the-job training opportunities, a paid internship, or place them directly into an open position.
So far, 36 graduates have completed the program and are ready for placement with partners such as Square Space, Portland General Electric, and Metal Toad.
“Metal Toad is a place where a lot of these folks who are leaning how to code can then get their feet wet by having a paid internship and can potentially be hired on as junior developers,” says Randi King.
IT Not Only for Techies
IT jobs exist in sectors that are not necessarily in the high tech industry. As TechHire’s website suggests, these jobs are “in health care, retail, manufacturing, financial services, energy, transportation, or in local government.”
Ideal IT candidates might come from nontraditional sectors, with a liberal arts degree under their belt, or no degree at all.
But as Gardner says, you don’t need to have a college degree to get a really good job that pays between $45,000 and $70,000. That’s exactly why Code Oregon was started.
“It’s really about creating a bigger, more inclusive talent pool for the region’s employers to select candidates from,” explains Gardner. “But also letting people who historically didn’t think of themselves as a tech worker, to explore a career to see if it could be right for them.”
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