IBM has an Academic Initiative Program to address the mainframe skills shortage. Many companies that use mainframes are recruiting college students and are building internship programs to add to their mainframe workforce. Companies can reach college professors who teach mainframes, using the Academic Initiative Program. The professors can identify those students who are good to become top-notch systems programmers and application developers.
Till date, more than 500 schools worldwide have leveraged the IBM Academic Initiative Program. IBM provides a list of schools teaching mainframes at http://www.ibm.com/university/systemz.
The IBM Academic Initiative Program also conducts regular Student Mainframe contests in more than 10 countries. In 2008, IBM added a System Z Mastery Test and a Student Opportunity System to connect students and employers.
Companies using mainframes can also invest to build “in-house” skills in operations staff and distributed staff on System Z. Some colleges like Marist College offer online programs for Z/OS. (http://www.idcp.org/learnzos)
Companies that have internship programs and are active on campuses where mainframes are taught can tide over the mainframe skills crunch period. Many baby-boomers with mainframe knowledge are slowly retiring from the job market. It will take some time for new interns to get up to the same skill level as that of the retiring baby boomers.
Many large banks, insurance companies, telecom companies and government organizations are currently using System Z and Z/OS. They are offering paid internship programs to build up their mainframe workforce. That is a good thing for the mainframe market.