Demand for IT workers is down 44 percent, study says.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

SAN JOSE, Calif. _ Nationwide demand for information technology workers is down 44 percent this year from last year, but employers still won't be able to fill all their open positions with qualified candidates, predicts a study being released Monday by the Information Technology Association of America.

The study found that demand is still strong for some of the highly skilled tech workers who are common in Silicon Valley.

The gap between the number of positions open and the number of people available to fill them has been cut in half from last year to 425,000. The ITAA, an association of high-tech companies based in Arlington, Va., says this is due to the slowing economy and industry efforts in recent years to get more people to enter the field.

"There are a lot more people out there with the skills than there were five years ago," said Harris Miller, president of the ITAA. "On the demand side, the demand simply has slowed down because the U.S. economy is slower."

The study addresses a number of issues familiar to Silicon Valley workers and companies. Concerns about the supply of technical workers cover everything from the debate over the H-1B visa program, which allows skilled foreign workers to fill U.S. jobs, to efforts to give children greater access to technology. Others have questioned whether there is a genuine shortage of IT workers and whether the industry should be more willing to train U.S. workers.

The study predicts that employers will need to fill 900,000 information technology jobs (due to new positions, retirements and turnover) in 2001, down 44 percent from 1.6 million in 2000. The study predicts a shortage of 425,000 IT workers this year, which is half of the shortfall of 850,000 reported in 2001. The overall high-tech workforce is estimated at 10.4 million people, up from 10 million in last year's survey. The number does not include workers in government or non-profit jobs..

The study was based on interviews in December and January with managers who hire IT workers. It looked both at workers such as programmers, who develop products for technology companies, and at workers in areas such as technical support, who may work for a non-tech company.