Monster.com, the world’s largest online job listing portal, has tens of thousands of IT jobs listed. Hotjobs.com returns more than 27,000 IT, software development and telecommunication jobs. And Dice.com, the job site devoted exclusively to technology, lists more than 86,000 open positions.

That’s just skimming the surface of a preliminary technology job search. Tens of thousands of jobs are open across the U.S. for technology and technology sales professionals.  Search any newspaper Web site, Craigslist or LinkedIn, and you’ll find IT vendors and solution providers clamoring for new talent. And, for some reason, hiring managers complain about a talent shortage.

Surprisingly, the reason for the shortage isn’t a lack of talent or jobs, for that matter, but money. The preliminary results of the Channel Insider/Amazon Consulting Channel Talent survey finds that nearly half of solution providers are having a hard time filling positions because they can’t satisfy applicant’s salary expectations.

Software and networking engineers once wrote their own tickets to small fortunes as U.S. businesses raced to build the latest and greatest IT infrastructures. Nowadays, though, survey participants say globalization and foreign outsourcing is driving down salaries around the world, as emerging markets supply low-cost labor.

Satisfying wage expectations is only the second biggest problem. The biggest problem: finding the right talent – which often goes beyond just skill sets.

The channel IT talent crunch is having serious ramifications on reseller, solution provider and vendor business performance.

It’s not too late to weigh in on the channel talent crisis. Lend your voice to this important research by clicking on the links below. Channel Insider will report the results of this survey in two weeks.

• Solution Providers: Click Here
• IT Vendors: Click Here