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Comment by btian | Hacker News Reader

They should learn skills that are desirable in the current economy. Not just programming, but also nursing, chemical engineering etc.

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According to the BLS, the outlook for chemical engineers is only 4%, way below the average [1]. Other STEM fields, such as electrical engineering, are also in decline [2]. Software developers only increased by 19,000 jobs total. Students are graduating with the skills you list as desirable, but those skills aren't actually in demand.

[1] http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/chemical... [2] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245494/What_STEM_sho...

Yes, I was referring to the second link there, based on the more recent data:

"The number of employed software developers, the largest IT occupation segment, increased by only 1.75%, to 1.1 million, a gain of 19,000. The unemployment rate for developers last year was 2.7%, which is still elevated, according to Hira."

Software developers are doing well, especially compared with some other STEM professions, it's just not huge in absolute terms because there's only about 1.1 million software developer jobs overall. Good for us programmers, but not for STEM careers in general.

Under your own link "Software developers, systems software" has THE best combination of the salary, projected number of jobs, and projected growth rate.

Software developers are indeed in demand.

Nursing has topped, the industry lost jobs last year.

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