SA will pay more for skills

By Candice Jones for CompTIA

Johannesburg, 25 Mar 2008

Managers in emerging markets are more likely to increase salaries and benefits to entice skilled workers into the IT industry.

This is according to a global research report, published by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) and the Centre for Strategy Research.

The report reveals that 72% of emerging markets assessed - including SA, Russia, Poland, India and China - recommend IT professionals should receive higher salaries and better benefits.

In opposition to this, only 51% of established markets - made up of the US, UK, Japan, Italy, Germany and France, among others - agree that salaries and benefits would be the best method to recruit and maintain skills.

The report identifies the pressure emerging markets are under in recruiting and maintaining skills. According to the authors, these markets indicated that any possible solution to skills shortage should be attempted.

While the lack of skills plagues both established and emerging markets, the report shows countries like SA and India are some of the hardest hit. Of the 10 ICT professions identified, emerging countries showed shortages in eight.

Around 38% of IT managers globally say there are not enough qualified candidates to fill positions in their countries. In this regard, SA is one of the top four countries worried about qualified skills, with 49% of local managers saying there are definitely not enough.

Part of the recommendations made by respondents in SA was to increase skills development training. The report indicates that 82% of South African IT managers feel that opportunity for skills development is important.

The highest skills gap identified in the CompTIA report was the lack of security skills. The South African environment rates security skills highly; however, local IT managers are more worried about soft skills, such as project management and customer service, which showed a gap difference of 23. Following closely with a gap of 22, are server technology skills and then security at 21.

More focused development

Speaking at the CompTIA innovation forum last week, Keith Anderson, president of the IT Association and COO of Axiz, said skills development in SA had made great strides over the last year; however, it still has a long way to go.

He said skills development strategies must tie back to employment equity and formal sector employment. "They need some sort of partnership to meet the proper corporate social development mandates."

He says these kinds of opportunities, especially in the ICT sector, will arise in the run-up to the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Skills development needs to be more focused and collaborative, he said. "While companies are doing fantastic things with development academies and other skills creation mechanisms, they need to start collaborating to develop a more accessible ICT skills pool."

* To calculate the skills gaps, the report measures the skills gap by calculating the difference between responses on the importance of a particular skill and the perceived proficiency of employees.