Skill Shortage in SA:- As highlighted by Brainstorm magazine
“The South African IT industry doesn`t have a skills issue or a skills problem: it has a full-blown skills crisis. And if it doesn`t do something about it quickly, the entire industry will suffer a slow and agonising decline. And that`s the optimistic scenario.
Millions of people wanting jobs. Thousands of jobs wanting people. It sounds like a match made in heaven. It isn`t. The bleak reality of the South African IT industry – and most business sectors in this country, for that matter – is a rapidly dwindling skills pool, where it`s dog-eat-dog in the war for skilled people.
Listen to top IT and business leaders, and the tune is depressingly familiar: the shortage of IT skills is having an increasingly negative impact on business, with many companies being forced to delay introducing new products and services because of problems filling vacancies.
The jobs are there and they are high-paying jobs, but we are just not seeing the pipeline of people coming through the system.
This is going to force businesses to look beyond our borders for IT skills – and I think that`s a big problem for the economy, the industry and the country as a whole.
How can a country with millions of unemployed people suffer from skills and talent shortages? It sounds bizarre. But scratch the surface and the reasons are right there. For a start, the number of people with the right skills is negligible. Far too few young South Africans go on to higher education, let alone with maths and science.
What`s more, in a world where IT skills are the backbone of practically every business, growth is outpacing supply. Tech-intensive companies have almost doubled their IT headcount in the past few years, and are still being forced to outsource lowervel jobs to allow current staff to meet burgeoning business requirements. The fact that the world is our oyster plays a real role in the skills shortage.
But if the industry has the capacity and desire to recruit and grow its skills base, what`s the problem? Why does such a large shortfall exist? What can, and should, be done to alleviate the problem?
The industry should take a long, hard look at itself and its commitment to genuine skills development in this country.
The shortfall between supply and demand in advanced networking technology skills (internet protocol (IP) telephony, security and wireless) was 30 percent in 2009. This sector`s shortfall alone currently represents more than 69 700 people.
Other areas badly lagging behind in the skills race are C#, .Net, Java and project management, Basic desktop people are available, but the challenge remains to bridge the yawning divide between juniors and seniors.
We are seeing huge premiums being paid to lure scarce skills and it`s turning into a war for talent that will see the industry eat itself.”
Poaching wars are slowly killing the industry as a whole: as salaries go up, so companies put their rates up. And as rates climb, clients cut back on projects. So, instead of there being ten projects in the marketplace, suddenly there are only eight. And then some companies take their projects offshore to Ireland or India – and the whole market loses out.”