ICT skills shortage shock

Johannesburg, 17 Sep 2008

Research has found the Department of Labour (DOL) has underestimated, by almost half, how many ICT skills are needed in SA.

The results of an ICT skills survey, conducted by ITWeb and the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE), were released in Sandton yesterday.

"The survey suggests the 'real' skills shortage going into 2009 can be as high as 70 000 practitioners - more than 25% of the current workforce," said Adrian Schofield, manager of the Applied Research Unit, JCSE, at Wits University.

The DOL issued the National Master Scarce Skills list in April, indicating the ICT sector needed 37 565 IT professionals to ensure adequate skills in this sector.

The much bigger skills gap identified by the survey sets off several warning signals, said Schofield. "It drives the need for companies to pay higher and unrealistic salaries, and encourages job-hopping among skilled practitioners."

In addition, he said, employers will have to rely on people who have less experience than required.

The survey found 10% of corporate respondents do not have a retention policy. With those who do understand the necessity to provide incentives to retain staff, the most popular are professional development initiatives and performance-based bonuses.

Schofield said it was not surprising that 100% of companies surveyed said the ICT skills shortage was having a major impact, or even affecting the viability of their businesses. "Not a single person surveyed said there was no effect, or a minor affect."

Expecting too much

<B>How the survey was done</B>

ITWeb and the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) conducted an ICT skills survey to identify the most pressing skills needs in South African corporates, assess the current skills capacity of practitioners and their intentions for future skills development.
The survey was carried out in July and August 2008, and the analysis was done by the JCSE.
One-hundred-and-eleven valid responses were received from corporate executives, more than half of whom were of C-level status within their enterprise. Almost 75% of the companies are located in Gauteng, 60% are privately-owned, with a further 15% being South African-listed companies. Over 40% have less than 50 employees, with a further 20% having between 50 and 250 staff members.
Accordingly, the "IT departments" within these enterprises are generally very small, with over 70% employing less than 50 employees; within that group, 40% have less than 10 people supplying IT functions to the enterprise.

Although most job titles are clearly defined, the survey shows most IT practitioners find themselves fulfilling several activities within their jobs.

"This makes staff even more difficult to replace," noted Schofield. "In addition, it may prejudice the checks and balances that lead to good system development, as it is hard for anyone to be objective about their own work. Are we asking employees to do too many things?"

In terms of ICT priorities, business intelligence and knowledge management ranked as number one, showing the local climate mirrors the global need for such technologies in a successful enterprise. This was closely followed by application development, illustrating that software development relevant to individual businesses is top of mind.

The high ranking of technologies, such as software as a service, shows they are becoming increasingly accepted as the network infrastructure stabilises and becomes affordable to most. Also seen as top priorities are service-oriented architecture, Web development and, as the workforce becomes less desk-bound, mobile computing.

The skills in highest demand now, according to the survey, are process management, business intelligence and knowledge management, business analysis and systems analysis. These are followed by project management, systems design and architecture, and configuration management.

Respondents identified C#, Java and VB.net as the most sought-after programming language skills.

Schools to blame

Schofield pointed to the exodus of skills overseas and an inadequate education system as being responsible for the skills dearth. "This gap will not be closed by retention policies or in-work skills development programmes alone. The solution lies in the industry working together to make ICT careers more attractive to young people, in the education system devoting more resources to a relevant curriculum and in a serious investment in new entrants."

Professor Barry Dwolatzky, director of the JCSE and head of the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at Wits, put the inadequacy of the education system into perspective when he cited the national matric results for 2007.

Of the 565 744 students who passed matric last year, only 85 000 passed with university endorsement and 25 000 had a higher-grade maths pass. Of those, only 8 000 received high enough marks to enter science or engineering degree programmes.

"The pool to feed our skills sausage machine is frighteningly small," said Dwolatzky.

He noted that one of the solutions is a partnership between academia and industry, offering continued professional development to people who are already working, as well as training of graduates.

"South African companies want people to be billable from day one and resent having to train graduates. But companies need particular skills that you can't teach at university. Universities must meet companies half way to help close the gap."