Every corporation wants an effective workforce, but few want to pay for the training that can give them one. Some executives seem to believe that their IT staff should be able to keep up with new ideas and technology on their own time, with minimal corporate financial support. Those organizations that do support training and education tend to do so only in good times, so those items are often among the first to be slashed when IT budgets get tight.

The White House is following up on an offer made by President Barack Obama this week to help find a job for an unemployed semiconductor engineer in Texas. The offer was made during a live online town hall after the engineer's wife questioned the government's policy concerning H-1B visa workers.

U.S. technology companies are investing more in machines than in people, but tech hiring is nonetheless rising, according to a new report by Forrester and a just-released National Science Foundation study.

The ability of the U.S. to compete globally is eroding, according to a federal report released Friday that described itself as a "call to arms."

In an effort to challenge programmers worldwide, Facebook has brought back its Hacker Cup contest for a third round, the company announced Wednesday.

There are strong economic and business performance arguments driving the desire to see more women enter the IT workforce. The diversity and workforce lead for IBM Australia and New Zealand, Belinda Curtis, points to several studies demonstrating stronger corporate performance when women represent a high proportion of senior leadership or board positions.

Like most Year 10 girls, Rebekah Eden never planned on a career in the IT industry. Popular culture had conditioned her to believe that IT was all about lonely individuals hunched over computers for hours and hours on end. Instead, her studies were taking her towards a preferred career in forensic science. It was exposure to the industry through a week-long EXITE (Exploring Interest in Technology and Engineering) camp organised by IBM that changed her mind. During that week she was shown different aspects of the IT industry, from programming robots to developing websites. The experience completely changed her mind.

After four days of potholing, moving barrels across imaginary ravines and trying to map-read their way around the countryside, the pressure on the group of trainees was beginning to tell.