Penny Coulter, chairworman of National ICT Careers Week and director of IT recruitment company Taylor Coulter. Picture: Brianne Makin Source: The Australian
The March quarter Clarius Skills Index reveals a shortage of about 2200 computing professionals because of increased demand from resources projects, IT banking projects, anticipated requirements for carbon tax management systems and the rollout of the National Broadband Network.
Industry commentators believe declining enrolments in ICT courses at Australian universities and TAFEs, and a 50 per cent drop over the past decade in the number of domestic students completing IT courses, are exacerbating shortages in the sector.
"We are seeing a very substantial drop in the number of people studying IT at university," says IT recruitment company Peoplebank's chief executive officer Peter Acheson. "If you look at forward forecasting, more IT roles will be created; the convergence of business and IT is happening.
" Yet as IT has become more important to business, fewer people are studying it."
Australia's ICT sector comprises businesses engaged primarily in providing computer and telecommunications services, as well as hardware sales and service, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It is the fourth largest ICT market in the Asia-Pacific region after the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean markets, and the 11th largest in the world.
And it accounts for about 4.6 per cent of Australia's gross domestic product.
Some of the biggest employers of ICT graduates in Australia are international IT vendors, including Microsoft and IBM, and ICT end-users such as banks and government departments.
The most in-demand ICT roles nationally are network engineers (in all states), project managers, business analysts and developers.
Penny McLeod
Full article http://www.theaustralian.com.au/careers/skills-shortage-to-become-critical/story-fn717l4s-1226063877709
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