UK IT Skills Shortage
This article is from 3 years ago but it is very relevant at the moment with it being claimed that there are 2m job vacancies in the UK, main of them in technology, and Truss and Kwarteng saying they are hoping to add more skills to the skills occupation list and create a new visa to attract highly skilled people from abroad.
Indeed hey are suggesting that anyone with a degree from any of the to 100 – 150 universities worldwide should be allowed to come here to work.
UK Skills Shortage List
They are at it again as regards the UK IT Skills Shortage. The hooray chorus has already begun.
We have not come very far out of the last downturn when all the cuckoos are crying out that the new Jobs spring heralds a looming skills shortage.
The British Chambers of Commerce were at it today.
In a speech their boss said that there was a skills shortage in highly skilled sectors and especially IT.
He said that there was a 50% increase in firms finding problems in filling requirements with people with the right skills.
Already, the big companies are saying that they cannot get the right people with the right skills.
Professor Norman Matlock and UK IT Skills Shortage
People should read Professor Norman Matlock‘s reply to that ‘The software labour shortage is complete and utter garbage’ in our article of the same name.
All the people that are saying that there is a UK IT skills shortage are those represent those that will benefit if the Government decides to let a whole lot more cheap IT labour into the country.
No Problems Recruiting IT Workers
Let‘s look now at the latest survey published by e-skills.
The survey shows that, in the last quarter, only 2% of companies said that they had any trouble recruiting IT staff in the last 6 months.
It also shows that 7% of companies expect that they will have trouble recruiting IT staff in the next 6 months.
So, what does that mean? Does it mean that they didn‘t have any trouble recruiting before, but that they are going to have a lot more trouble recruiting IT staff very shortly?
Does it mean that there is a ‘looming skills‘ crisis‘?
Does it hell!
That 2% and 7% were the same for the previous 3 months – and the three months before that.
And they have remained consistent for quite a while.
What it means is that 7% of companies expect to have trouble recruiting IT staff, but when it comes to it only 2% ever do have any trouble.
No UK IT Skills Shortage
Think about it!
In the last Quarter only 1-in-50 companies had any trouble at all in recruiting IT workers. That means that 49-in-50 companies had no trouble at all in finding IT staff.
What sort of UK IT skills shortage is that?
Many of the skills shortages aren‘t really skills shortages anyway. It‘s a trick of the light.
Advertising Jobs for IT Workers
If a company needs 10 people when they are advertising a job that needs 6 different skills and can only find 7 with the exact fit, does that mean that they have a skills shortage of 3 people even if they find 3 other people that have 5 of the 6 skills wanted?
If a Project Manager wants 10 contractors, but is told by HR that before he can take on contractors he must try and find permies first, if he finds 5 permies and then takes on 7 contractors does that mean that there is a skills shortage of 7 at the company?
That particular scenario happens quite a lot across the country and I‘ve had it happen to me several times when I wanted to recruit contractors as a Project Manager.
Those ‘vacancies‘ remain at the company even though there is actually someone there (a contractor) performing the role.
IT Vacancies Are Not Real Vacancies
I‘ll bet what happens is that those people who do surveys ring up HR departments across the country and add up all of those supposed ‘vacancies‘ and then say that there is a skills shortage.
I‘ll bet that very many of those supposed ‘vacancies‘ and ‘skill shortages‘ are roles currently being done by contractors, and for which the Project Manager didn‘t want permies in the first place.
Think about it again!
In companies across the country 49-in-50 hirers had no trouble filling IT vacancies.
I wonder where the ‘UK IT skills shortage‘ survey people get their data from!
Their big lie is nailed!
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