Tech talent shortage - Challenges in the modern technology market

According to the huge number of media we expose daily, it is commonly perceived that the vacancies in the tech professions are in an ongoing shortage. So don’t you think so? The answer is a nodding yes. Through the evolution of the modern era, tech talent shortage persistently remains and becomes an urgent problem in the workforce.

However, the term “shortage” is more than just the vacancies, so it needs to be broken down to analyze the big picture of the tech workforce in two dimensions: quantity and quality, which will be proved by global and local statistics.

1, Shortage in the quantity

The IT talent scarcity is evident with a huge number of vacancies in IT-related positions.

With either the greater scale companies aim for or the more demanding this market requires, businesses need more and more employees for technological fields regardless of the types.

According to a recent report by IDC titled "Enterprise Automation to Mitigate the Digital Skills Shortage," a significant portion (around 60%-80%) of AP organizations are facing challenges in filling vacancies for various IT roles such as security, developers, and data professionals.?

There is the fact that skills are difficult to find and take a long time to replace. 53% of organizations in AP are taking 3-4 months longer compared to a year ago to fill technology roles. Any tech-related positions are continuously in shortage status.

Additionally, this argument is supported by the AIDT survey. WTW conducted a salary survey called AIDT, which looked at the demand for tech talent in both tech and tech-enabled businesses. The survey found that there was a significant increase in the number of employees, especially at the senior professional and management levels, in 2022 compared to 2021.

2, Shortage in the quality

It is evident that the state of high-demanding positions not being fulfilled is attributed to the shortage in the skills of the workforce in general. Breakdown into sectors can make a complete viewpoint, which will be explained statistically.

According to the 2015 Harvey Nash CIO Survey, more than half (53%) of technology hiring managers reported a shortage of skilled workers in 2015. Even more concerning, 44% of them anticipated that this shortage would worsen in the future. This shortage is evident in the higher number of tech job listings on Seek's platforms, with a 66% increase in Singapore and a 29% increase in Asia overall, as stated by Bithos.?

Besides, the fluctuation of the tech job applicants in six Asian economies (Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand) also reflects the problems with this tech talent shortage. It’s recorded that it has increased by 14%. This rise may be due to tech sector layoffs and individuals feeling more confident as the pandemic subsides. While laid-off workers have job options available, these may not necessarily be in pure tech companies, according to Bithos.

With the rise of demand in this field, the shortage of tech professionals is insufficient supply. The higher demanding positions even record the worse insufficiency.

Let’s check the anticipated supply and demand in some technological sectors by 2027 to see this shortage status of skilled professionals in Korea:

AI: demand = 66,100, supply = 53,300 → Shortage = 12,800

Big data: Shortage = 19,600

Nanotechnology: demand = 10,600, supply= 4,800 → Shortage = 5,800

Cloud: Shortage = 10,500

R&D: Demand = 21,500, supply = 4,900 → Shortage = 16,600

These are the speaking figures that reflect the shortage in the highly demanding position.?

Tech talent is the determiner

The talent shortage inevitably causes the downgrading of outcomes in terms of product, customers, and even staff.

For the business, this tech talent shortage has been recorded to engender the 37% of organizations in AP delaying tech initiatives and 36% altering their direction of tech initiatives.

Accordingly, this point is not only statistically approved but also agreed upon by the majority of workers. A survey shows that 71 percent of CIOs based in the APAC region believe skills shortage is preventing their organizations from keeping up with the pace of change. Limit initiatives or progress come with the business's slow growth.

From the employees, the major consequences of the skills shortage are increased workload on remaining employees, increased security risks, and loss of critical knowledge.

Thus, tech talent is the top priority to solve for businesses.

Training and providing employees?

So the thing is how to encounter this situation because fulfilling all vacancies and training workers takes lots of time. There will be two sides in dealing with it.

One is joint initiatives by the government and companies, aimed at sponsoring IT education, which will have a lasting impact on the talent market for years to come. This one focuses on advancing the worker profession, which may take time but is sure to be sustainable. It is crucial to make proactive investments in IT and provide training at all levels of the business hierarchy in order to strengthen a company's capabilities.

The other one, IT outsourcing service, can be ideal for adapting with financial advantage and time economical. This is also the common solution of many companies. Half of the global CIOs state that they are turning to outsourcers more frequently to compensate for the skills they lack internally. In contrast, only a quarter of CIOs are seeking outsourcers primarily for cost savings.

For any side, AMELA, a joint company, with our advanced talent development can entirely and comprehensively. We own and develop courses for the sake of IT professionals, and provide employee referral service from developers, and comtors to other levels based on the business requirements in our own workforce.?

If you are longing for solutions dealing with tech talent shortages, our company will be the destination of your finding, a minute to discover our services and have the answer to your problems: https://amela.tech?

Edited by AMELA.