While ICT workers rail against employers offshoring work and using overseas staff on 457 visas for destroying opportunities in the sector, academics insist their graduates are finding jobs as easily as ever.

Leon Sterling, dean of the ICT faculty at Swinburne University and head of the Australian Council of Deans of ICT, said debate about the issue was ‘‘distorted by a small minority of loud voices’’.

Professor Sterling said outsourcing did not spell bad news for new starters but instead led to the creation of additional opportunities.

‘‘Far from removing jobs, there are more jobs,’’ he said. ‘‘People may be nervous, as a result of getting the message that there are no jobs in ICT, but it’s not true.’’

His comments follow the release last week of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency’s ICT Workforce Study, which called for more young people to be funnelled into the sector to avoid a major skills shortage.