To deal with the competition for IT talent, big companies in the South often open IT sites in other, more technology-rich areas of the country. For example, companies in the South often look to Dallas as a potential source for IT talent, either as a place to entice IT workers to relocate from, or as a home for parts of their IT operations, says Mike Phelan, human capital advisory services leader for the Texas region within IT services firm Deloitte & Touche. The rise of Dallas as a hub of activity in the IT market can be attributed to the city's solid telecommunications infrastructure and the wealth of IT talent drawn to the area's software industry, which blossomed in the early 1990s.

Federal Express Co.'s Dallas office lets the Memphis, Tenn., company beat competitive employers in the Texas region at their own game, says Julie Yancey, managing director of global IT. That's because FedEx's potential IT talent pool in Memphis is often siphoned off to technology jobs in Dallas. So, by having a presence in the Lone Star state, FedEx can better compete for IT talent in that region.

While approximately 60% of FedEx's IT staff is located in the main IT hub in Memphis, and 5% is in Dallas, the company opened IT facilities in other cities a few years ago to widen its IT talent pool. FedEx has IT sites in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Orlando, Fla.; a Los Angeles IT facility is a "spillover" IT group that came with FedEx's acquisition of Flying Tiger airline several years ago, Yancey says.

FedEx's archrival United Parcel Service of America Inc. is headquartered in Atlanta. The company keeps a small IT group in the Atlanta office, but the bulk of its 4,000-person IT staff is spread out among six IT facilities in Bergen County in northern New Jersey, says Jim Giancola, UPS's workforce planning manager. The IT organization "just sort of grew up in New Jersey," he says.

UPS offers internships to college students attending Syracuse University in central New York, only a few hours' drive from its New Jersey facilities. Giancola says many students who participate in the summer internships live in New Jersey and end up taking full-time IT jobs with UPS upon graduation.

Illustration by Jim Dandy