Discusses the computer engineering industry in the United States. Recounts recent shifts in the computer industry and notes that despite foreign competition, the industry offers graduating computer engineers ample opportunities for employment. Claims that skill and technical knowledge are the most important assets for getting a job. (TW)

Beset by institutional cost pressures, and by a thriving market for computer-related talent, institutions are finding special challenges to the productivity of their computer services. The circumstances and problems of personnel turnover are outlined. Some practical responses available to institutional administrations are illustrated.

In 1980 1,455,000 persons worked in computer occupations. Two in five were systems analysts or programmers; one in five was a keypunch operator; one in 20 was a computer service technician; and more than one in three were computer and peripheral equipment operators. Employment was concentrated in major urban centers in four major industry…