SAP and Microsoft engineers are being 'poached` in growing numbers, say some industry players.
"We`re getting raided," states GijimaAst CEO John Miller, referring to the demand in SA for SAP and Microsoft systems engineers specialising in the development of applications, migration between operating systems and the creation of databases.
Miller explains that around 12% of his professionals in these areas have been headhunted by competitors in the last six months.
Skills shortage
Danny Naidoo, platform group director at Microsoft SA, agrees there are a number of companies poaching Microsoft systems engineers. "We see it happening with large companies as well as smaller companies," he notes.
"There is definitely a skills shortage, not only in the field of engineers but people with certifications in other areas such as enterprise resource planning and development as well," he adds.
Louise Heyser, recruitment manager at The People Business Group, says she has noticed an increasing scarcity of SAP skills.
"The shortage is particularly evident in the financial services-related SAP skills market."
Heyser advises that companies offer skilled employees the opportunity of studying leadership courses in offers of employment in order to add value to a contract. Initiatives like this would mean employees would not move so easily between companies, she says, since they would be tied to a company while having such studies subsidised.
Abacus Recruitment MD Org Geldenhuys cautions that one must be specific when talking about skills shortages.
"At the moment there is a desperate need for C# programmers, and developers on the Microsoft .NET platform are also in demand," he says.
Marika Webster, branch manager of Communicate Personnel, says she has noticed that "on the SAP side there definitely seems to be a shortage".
Visual Basic and C# software developers are also in high demand, she notes, agreeing with Geldenhuys.
Webster says the recruitment process for non-black candidates in these areas can "take longer", but denies that suitably qualified non-black specialists are on the company`s books while industry vacancies persist.
Train or raid?
Naidoo says it is expensive for IT companies to facilitate and implement skills programmes in-house. "Not many companies are doing it and therefore the market is still running into a skills shortage."
GijimaAst spends R12 million annually on IT training, according to financial director Carlos Ferreira, but he adds that it can be a costly exercise to train a person and then have him stolen by another company when qualified.
"You either raid somebody else, or you spend a lot of money training people," Miller agrees.
He says that losing qualified engineers has affected GijimaAst`s ability to accept contracts, adding that often the company is not prepared to match the salary offer of a poacher, since that would necessitate raising salaries across the board.
Driving factors
Naidoo points to a number of factors driving the shortage of Microsoft and SAP skills. "Not enough people at universities and technikons are entering the ICT or business studies fields, and higher education institutions do not offer curricula against industry demand."
He adds that there is not enough information about the South African ICT labour market, and that the integrity of such information is often questionable.