In 2014-2016 the demand for information and communications technology specialists in Lithuania will be five times higher than the supply. According to the study by the association Infobalt, there will be a demand for 17,500 ICT specialists, while Lithuanian higher education institutions will prepare 3,200 graduates, informs LETA/ELTA.According to the research, in the next few years 91% of companies plan to higher new ICT staff. Micro-enterprises with less than 10 employees are the ones that plan to increase personnel the most. However, it is difficult for small companies to compete attracting new employees because of their limited financial resources and career opportunity offers.
What is more, statistics of applications to higher education institutions shows that only 6% of applicants choose IT, electronics and other ICT studies and only 51% of students graduate.
Infobalt Innovation Manager Andrius Pleckaitis said that foreign investors and Lithuanian IT companies devote particular attention for employee search. Companies develop hundreds or even thousands of well-paid ICT professionals. Yet, further development and creation of quality jobs is limited by the decreasing number of young specialists. Other European countries also face this problem. Therefore, prompt actions are needed so that young people could become ICT specialists and new jobs were created.
It is projected that in 2014-2016 ICT companies will higher around 4,500 employees. Around one third of them will be graduates of other programmes and not ICT, but who have acquired needed qualifications independently. Therefore, when competition for highly qualified employees grows, so will expenditure on salaries. It will cause product and service prices to increase and will have implications on the country’s competitiveness.
“The numbers of IT specialists and services provided by them are directly related to the competitiveness of countries and regions. According to the data of the European Commission, 40% of productivity and 25% of GDP rise from ICT. So, when we talk about the lack of ICT professionals we have in mind other sectors of Lithuanian economy and competitiveness of the European Union, not just the needs of the ICT sector,” said Infobalt Executive Director Edmundas Zvirblis.
Source: The Baltic Course
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/Technology/?doc=84822