Amazon faced the toughest questioning from lawmakers during a hearing Tuesday attended by representatives of big tech firms. Reuters reported that Apple too, found itself in the firing line during the hearing. Questions to Apple focussed on costs associated with App Store Purchases

Legislators also demanded explanations from Apple Inc about charges for apps and in-app purchases, Facebook Inc for its rapidly changing privacy policy and Alphabet’s Google over whether its rivals are demoted in search results. The committee does not have authority to punish the companies, and any effort to change antitrust laws affecting tech firms would face hurdles in the Republican-controlled Senate. So the questioning served largely to convey the panel’s displeasure over many of the companies’ business practices.

ZDNet writes: “The skills shortage is spreading further, with developers for data science, DevOps and cloud roles in high demand.”  Citing recruiting research in the UK:

Harvey Nash director David Savage said the recruiter found the biggest skills shortages were in data science and analytics. He said because data science demands a narrow field of technical skills, plus a highly academic approach, there are huge problems in the talent pipeline and no clear or easy way to increase the number of available professionals.

There’s a shortage in the U.S. as well for highly skilled programmers.