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The unfilled demand for e-skills manifests in hard-to-fill vacancies on the side of employers. Generally and according to the Eurostat enterprise survey of 2007 among private sector enterprises of 10 and more employees, 17.6 percent of the European enterprises employ ICT specialists and 7.2 recruited or tried to recruit IT specialists. Based on the same source 47% of enterprises which (try to) recruit personnel with ICT specialist skills had hard to fill vacancies in this area.
| Enterprises (10+ empl.) with hard-to-fill vacancies for jobs requiring ICT specialist skills, during 2006, EU27 | ||
| % of all | % of recruiting | |
| Total | 3.4 | 47.1 |
| 10-49 employees | 2.5 | 48.7 |
| 50-249 employees | 5.7 | 42.0 |
| 250+ employees | 18.0 | 50.0 |
| Manufacturing | 2.2 | 41.1 |
| Construction | 1.0 | 42.7 |
| Services | 4.7 | 49.3 |
| Selected service industries | ||
| Trade | 2.7 | 45.1 |
| Financial sector | 11.2 | 45.0 |
| Post and telecommunications | 13.2 | 50.9 |
| Business services w/o computer activities | 5.6 | 49.3 |
| Computer and related activities | 31.2 | 56.4 |
Source: Eurostat data base retrieval 04/2009
However, this data shows the number of companies but does not allow to calculate the actual number of hard to fill vacancies, i.e. open IT positions in European companies.
In order to estimate the actual number, we have made use of data on the median number of IT positions at organisations and of IT positions being actively recruited by companies in the countries surveyed from the CompTIA White Paper on “Skills Gaps in the World’s IT Workforce” published in February 2008. The data comes from a survey of 3,578 “IT Managers” in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Poland, Russia, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the USA.
According to their (non-representative) survey, half of the companies have open positions, and the median number of IT positions (filled and unfilled) in these organisations was 20, of which the median of open IT positions was 5 (ergo: 15 filled), of which 4 positions were being actively recruited.
The other half of the respondents reports no open positions. We might expect that in this half of employers there is even some oversupply, we might assume 5% (i.e. one redundancy in 20 jobs).
That means, at this point in time, 4 unfilled vacancies existed for every 15 employed IT professionals in one half of the enterprises, while the other half had one redundancy in 20 employed IT professionals.
Now the aggregate demand would amount to 19/15=127% of employed IT professionals in one half, and 95% in the other half. Together (average of 95% and 127%= 110.8) this would result in a 10.8% excess demand.
If one calculates with the 3.78 million IT-workers according to the LFS, the excess demand at this point in time would have amounted to 408,000 unfilled vacancies, totalling the aggregate demand at 4.18 million jobs. However, this figure appears to be extremely high.
It has to be said that this survey took place in late 2007, i.e. before the crisis. Also, the survey was mainly among very large corporations (44% of the respondents are enterprises with 1000+ employees). Is it reasonable to assume that the ratio of open vacancies to existing IT staff is similar in smaller enterprises? Unfortunately, the study does not tell us about this relationship.
For estimating the 2009 numbers and to come up with a figure for Europe for a ‘crisis’ situation / scenario we have multiplied the 2007 demand for IT professionals in Europe with 10%. Using this calculation the actual demand for IT professionals in Europe is estimated to be 40,800.
Still, this figure appears rather high, comparing to what CEPIS had in their most optimistic scenario, namely an over-demand of 70,000. However, CEPIS used a completely different methodology in that they apparently did not account for any excess demand in their baseline, but only in the (then) future developments based on the scenarios.
The above are the only sources we managed to identify and which are providing at least some data which – with all its insufficiencies – we have used in our first attempt for estimating the absolute number of hard to fill vacancies of IT professionals in Europe. We would like to discuss the above data sources, calculation procedure and estimate with experts who may also know of other and better data sources and methodological procedures.
Please post your comments. Where possible, please provide sources, empirical evidence and data supporting your opinion and arguments.
You have certainly broken this down well for us and given us a lot of information of e-Skills in the Netherlands. Really insightful and useful info here, which we thank you for sharing.
I was very encouraged to find this site. I wanted to thank you for this special read on this looming gap in eskills in Europe. I definitely savored every little bit of this including all the comments and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.
It would be nice to observe the measures taken from national governments and international organisations such as the EU in order to address this presently hot issue.
In the Netherlands, the focus on eSkills is indeed on the broader definition. As in Europe, the definition of eSkills is unhelpful in this discussion (as eSkills in that definition define both the basic home-users as the principal software engineers). When discussing the eSkills-gap we need to focus on the ICT-professionals that can consult on ICT solutions, build, implement and maintain them. There is an unquestionable scarcity in this (so-called ‘narrow’) definition. The chosen method of research seems to be the best method for the research question.
Within the discussion on eSkills, the ICT-professionals should not be compared to those professionals using ICT. A vast majority uses ICT professionally in the Netherlands now-a-days. But using ICT does not imply being able to solve business, economical and societal problems/challenges with ICT.
The gap that Empirica finds is not explained by looking at a too narrow group of ICT-professionals (as the previous response mentions), but due to the existing lack of professionals with the necessary, specialist, ICT skills. It seems to me that this research looks at the demand and supply of ICT-professionals (being eSkills in narrow definition). A new research (question) would be started when discussing the demand and supply of ICT-skilled people in general. Then, the broader definition would be more suitable.
Looking to the education of ICT-professionals, it is indeed visible that the core Informatics studies see a decline of students (at least until the academic year 2008/2009). For the bachelor ICT-studies, the overall decline is 9 percent at universities for applied science and 14 percent at research universities. The ‘newer’ studies, such as game design and communication & multimedia design, are more popular and still see an increase in new students. Unfortunately, these increases do not compensate the losses of students in the more traditional ICT-education programmes. With the exception of the communication studies, the participation of women in ICT-studies is very low in the Netherlands (3 to 8 percent). These statistics have been published in the ICT~Marktmonitor 2009 of ICT~Office and were calculated from data received from the Dutch institution for higher education IB-Groep.
Additional info (Belgium) e-Skills Monitoring study European Commission
In 2008 the Belgian federal government approved the relaxation of an economical migration system for hard-to-fill vacancies of ICT profiles in many sectors. At this moment a lot of Indian IT experts are active in ICT vocations, but this is only a small part of the total number of unfilled vacancies for IT –professions.
Source http://www.smartbusiness.be
Thanks to an ambitious high-tech policy, Brussels can be become the digital capital of Europe. Following the example of Ireland, the Multisector Federation For The Technology Industry. (Agoria) launced in 2008 its Iris (h) plan for ICT professions. This project would provide 2% extra Gross Domestic Product growth and 10,000 additional jobs over a period of 10 years.
Source http://www.bncto.be/
According to Agoria sustainable innovative sectors should be developed to create jobs. Their growth will create new activities in other sectors of the economy (trade, real estate, maintenance, etc.). It is better for the quality of the labour market to increase the level of the unemployed especially for the short skilled on the labour market (via ICT training) than to reduce the level of the labour market itself.
Key figures of Flemish External Autonomous Agency of Public Law for Employment and Vocational Training and Guidance (VDAB) and the Flemish Minister of Employment Frank Vandenbroucke show that one out of five jobs in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector within the year have not been filled in. VDAB has received 9,129 vacancies for ICT jobs during the period May 2007 to April 2008. For 7,394 ICT professions or (81%) a suitable candidate has been found. At the end of April 2008 there were 1,850 vacancies in the ICT sector. Especially developers, network administrators, helpdesk staff and computer technicians were and are still hard to find.
In collaboration with Agoria, VDAB started a pilot project to verify whether job seekers who register for ICT jobs, are really benefiting from these ICT jobs. At the end of 2007 only 962 (29%) of 3,295 job seekers who were enrolled in an ICT profession, retained also a ICT profession after screening. 1206 of the job seekers were working and 608 of the job seekers were no longer available for work or for the labour market. A targeted approach is therefore necessary.
Sources http://www.vdab.be
http://arvastat.vdab.be/
http://www.vlaanderen.be/
The list of hard-to-fill vacancies for the Brussels capital region and for the Walloon region are showing practically the same outcomes and developments as in Flanders. Therefore the Job Focus action has been launched in the Walloon region to discover hard to fill in vacancies in the ICT sector amongst other sectors : “L’action “Job Focus” en Région wallonne pour découvrir les métiers en pénurie”. A summary of hard to fill in vacancies could be consulted on the following web sites.
Sources http://www.leforem.be/
http://www.actiris.be/Observatoire/pdf/Lijst_knelpuntberoepen_in_2007.pdf
http://www.foyer.be/
http://www.fvbffc.be/
Some crosscutting comments on behalf of a group of Dutch experts
Hereby, we send you our comments on the e-Skills Monitoring Study that Emprica is conducting. We have distributed your email and information to several experts, among which Statistics Netherlands, and have collected their comments.
Regarding e-Skills in the Netherlands, statistics Netherlands monitors e-skills in the Netherlands on a more than yearly basis. Its publications show that (see ‘The Digital Economy’ 2008, CBS):
- e-Skills in the Netherlands are just above average compared to other EU countries;
- the percentage of IT-graduates is just above average compared to other EU countries (was slightly below EU-average in 2005);
- the percentage of employed ICT professionals (both narrow and broad definition) is just above average compared to other EU countries (3.9 percent, which places the Netherlands in fourth position from the European perspectives);
- in the Netherlands, the number of vacancies in the ICT sector was stable in 2007, while the number of vacancies grew steadily in the rest of the economy.
Regarding the question whether or not Europe is facing an e-Skills gap, we find it interesting that the data of the Empirica study shows that the IT sector is experiencing an e-Skills gap and that it has problems finding ICT personnel. This could possibly be explained by the fact that the Empirica study focuses on personnel with ICT specialist skills, and thereby uses a narrow definition for ICT professionals.
There are various definitions for ICT professionals agreed in different international panels. The narrow definition of ICT professionals is that of specialists developing, operating and maintaining ICT systems. ICT is the core of their work. The wider definition of ICT professionals includes advanced and basis users of ICT and software tools.
An e-Skills gap might be looming regarding personnel with ICT specialist skills (narrow definition). It is simply more difficult to find ICT personnel with specialised skills. Moreover, in the Netherlands, the share of college and university graduates in ICT disciplines has decreased (see table 7.3.1 ‘The Digital Economy’ 2008). However, there is a noticeable steady increase in the number of information scientists graduating in the discipline communication systems (see ‘The Digital Economy’ 2008). There might be an undersupply of the “I” in ICT professionals, but not of the “C”. When the broader definition of ICT professionals is used, an increase of e-Skills supply can be found both for the Netherlands as for the European Union (as shown by European statistics on e-Skills).
Thus, there might be a serious and increasing undersupply of ICT practitioners with specialised skills. They are scarce now, and will remain scarce. However, we find that there is no undersupply of ICT skilled professionals when the wider definition is used and advanced and basis users of ICT and software tools are included.
It seems that different data and a different methodology are used. The European (IT) industry representatives might be focussing on the narrow definition, while many countries and Eurostat monitor the general level of e-Skills of the population. An extra complexity might be that classifying education programmes is very complex as multiple ICT disciplines can be distinguished with new disciplines being regularly added, and names of disciplines being changed. It might also differ between countries so that data may be distorted to some degree.
The Netherlands has chosen for a general programme on e-Skills, and not for a programme to stimulate the percentage of ICT personnel with specialised skills. Overall, e-Skills in the Netherlands are relatively high. However, research shows particular groups lack these skills, and that e-Skills contribute both to individual wellbeing (social inclusion, higher wages, consumer advantages etc.), as to economic growth. e-Skills are essential to participate fully in our information society. In making sure that everyone has at least basic e-Skills, a major improvement for the information society can be made. Presently, a five-year e-Skills action programme has just started in 2009.
If you would like more information on e-Skills in the Netherlands in relation to the economy please see the ‘The Digital Economy’ 2007 and 2008, in particular the paragraphs 2.3, 7.3 and 7.4. http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/6B7FB67D-9213-4BB0-B9E6-4B32A3EAC6EA/0/2008p38pub.pdf