A Meta Group survey has revealed that 45% of companies
would pay premiums for IT skills that are difficult to find or
retain.
Skill shortages were cited as most acute in highly specialised
areas such as wireless computing and information security, in the
survey of 650 large and midsize companies.
Poor morale among IT workers, fuelled by budget and staff cuts,
was cited by 72% of respondents as a major problem in their
organisations. To improve morale, 45% respondents said they have
employee recognition programmes in place, while 40% offer training
and other skill-development opportunities.
Growing demand for IT skills is leading companies to pay IT
workers more than their nontechnical peers. This year, 76% of
respondents said they plan to pay IT workers more than other
workers, about the same as last year.
Meta said 15% of respondents cited a continuing need for
Internet-related skills such as application development and Java
application management, while 11% said networking skills are highly
sought after.
However, demand for e-commerce skills continues to ease, with
only 15% indicating a strong need for those capabilities, down from
22% last year and 25% in 2002.
Of those surveyed, 20% of companies are involved in offshore
outsourcing, while 40% of this group said that 5% or less of their
IT workforce is deployed offshore.
Although 81% of survey respondents have added IT staff this
year, hiring is far from robust and there is no net gain in the
number of new IT workers, Meta said.
Thomas Hoffman writes for
Computerworld