Plugging the skills gap: A practical approach

There will be a shortfall of 1.7 million IT professionals in Western Europe by the year 2003 - unless rapid action is taken by IT suppliers, educational establishments and governments.

This shortage - revealed in a recent study carried out by IDC - can largely be explained by the huge demand for skills by companies wishing to operate in the New Economy. In other words, as an increasing proportion of European organisations seek to engage in ebusiness, demand for skills which enable that way of working is far outstripping supply.

From the supply side, the shortage can be addressed in a number of ways. First, governments, IT suppliers and educational establishments can collaborate on training initiatives - indeed, some IT suppliers are already working closely with government to provide a greater number of skilled IT professionals. For example, Cisco's Networking Academy is designed to support governments and educational establishments in training professionals with valuable internetworking skills.

Second, organisations can turn to offshore outsourcing companies. Many IT activities, such as programming, can be undertaken in any part of the world. Currently, the Indian subcontinent offers many valuable skills to offshore outsourcing companies.

Third, and most importantly in the short term, governments can liberalise the supply side of the IT labour market by facilitating the immigration of skilled IT professionals. Most European governments have sought ways of doing this. For example, in the UK, the processing of visas for skilled IT professionals from outside the EU has been speeded up. In Germany, an initiative has been launched to encourage 20,000 skilled IT professionals to enter the country.

However, the whole issue of immigration has become increasingly politicised in most Western European countries in recent years. Political parties often choose to differentiate themselves by focusing on sensationalist issues, and immigration and asylum seeking are usually at the forefront.

The current political climate is making it more difficult for Western European companies to attract talent from outside the EU. Instead, many skilled workers are choosing to work in the United States where an IT skills shortage also exists. Essentially, the United States is able to cherry pick the world's best skills whereas Europe remains a less attractive environment for skilled foreigners.

This message was strengthened by a recent interview in the Wall Street Journal Europe with Hasso Plattner, joint CEO of SAP, Europe's largest software vendor.

Plattner explained that 'integrating' skilled people from foreign countries into German society is a problem and that the US has a competitive advantage over Germany because such integration is easier. This seems to be the case in most Western European countries.

Given that training and adopting less labour intensive means of computing are both medium to long term solutions to the skills shortage, the only way to address the short term challenge is to liberalise the supply side of the IT labour market.

Furthermore, European governments should be advised to de-politicise the immigration issue or risk making their countries unattractive to foreign skills, thereby strengthening the competitive advantage of the US in the New Economy.