The Australian Computer Society said its latest annual statistics for the sector showed that demand for jobs in communications and technology would hit 12,300 by early next year.
However, the number of domestic students completing ICT courses is still struggling to recover from a decline that began in 2009.
According to the ACS's annual statistical compendium the number of domestic graduates expected to complete ICT courses next year will be 4724; only marginally higher than in 2009 when 4435 students graduated. The annual study also revealed raw vacancy rates in the sector of about 16,600 in strategic and managerial ICT roles during September last year.
ACS president Nick Tate said industry and government needed to work together to change perceptions of ICT careers and encourage students to choose ICT courses.
"The demand for ICT professionals is going up because participation in the digital economy is going up and the supply of domestic ICT graduates is static and those who complete ICT VET courses is going down," Mr Tate said.
The society's view is supported by a Deloitte Access Economics report that warned of severe disruptions to Australia's economy because of the rise of digital era.
Deloitte identified a shortage in the number of school-leavers choosing tertiary IT courses and businesses choosing not to act as major risks for the economy's ability to weather the change.
Mr Tate said some of the high vacancy rate could be due to a mismatch between domestic skills and demand.
Mr Tate said anecdotal evidence that cloud computing appeared to dominate job vacancy listings could suggest that the ICT workforce was not modernising skills rapidly enough to match industry needs.
However, the computer society said in its report that some of its findings suggested that the high vacancy rate in the industry was likely to be attributable to "ageism, racism and sexism".
"The figures can't give us an absolute certainty but what we're seeing is that the particular suggestion here is that it does show very low participation by some groups," Mr Tate said.
Despite the apparent skills shortages, the ACS's most recent industry remuneration survey found that technology professionals were holding steady rather than rising sharply.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Andrew Colley
Quelle/Source: Australian IT, 13.11.2012
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
