It's official: Australia's skills shortage is back with IT
managers confirming they are working longer hours and struggling to
retain staff.
While the impact is only starting to emerge in some states, the
nation's capital, Canberra, is being hit the hardest.
Brynten Taylor, technical services director at the Department of
Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), said every federal
government department with a substantial IT shop is suffering from
a skills shortage. Taylor said his team of 40 people could easily
be 10 to 20 percent larger "just to handle the work we have at the
moment."
"Another four to five would go down well," Taylor said. "We do
have to advertise but we'd listen to anyone who is knocking on the
door as we have vacancies all the time and it's just a case of
re-advertising."
Although DEWR is not slowing down projects as a result of the
labor shortage, current staff are working harder and longer to get
projects done which is "increasing stress levels."
He admits some agencies are being forced to outsource."Canberra
is a small town and the IT community is small, so the supply isn't
increasing dramatically. Many rob Peter to give to Paul," Taylor
said. "When DEWR advertises a position if it can pick up one or two
people "that's been good."
"There doesn't seem to be that many people coming into IT, and
no, it's not just about enough people."We're focusing on growing
our own -- but when you skill them up you have a retention issue.
Over the last couple of years it seems to have worsened a bit and
we haven't seen any improvement yet."
The department's skills problem forced it to open an office in
Sydney where the branch head of application development, Mark Webb,
has hired around 150 staff for application development. Webb said
there is probably a 10 per cent shortfall in necessary IT staff,
but it varies across skill sets, geographies, and experience.
"I've not had any trouble attracting new graduates but at the
more experienced end of market it's more competitive," Webb
said.
Finding suitable talent has also been a problem for SBS
information systems manager Greg Koen, who recently sifted through
more than 100 applications in six months to find the right person
to fill a network security position.
"I had to replace someone who was here nine years and it's tough
to get hold of someone good at Unix and networking," Koen said.
"Networking, to a lot of people, means hooking Windows PCs
together, but someone with deep knowledge of TCP/IP is a rare
commodity."
With more than 100 applicants for the job, Koen narrowed the
list down to only three, because "I met some very ambitious people
rather blind to their own abilities."
"The skills shortage also happens when you try a one-for-one fit
for a long-standing member of a team -- that's tough," he said.
"I'm not sure what the light at the end of the tunnel is. There
will be quite a generational change where more intellectual
property will be embedded into devices and the gap between people
with technology skills will broaden."
IT departments struggle to increase headcount
While not suffering a skills shortage himself Geoff Lazberger,
Stella Resorts Group CIO, said it is "obvious" there is a skills
shortage resulting from a combination of outsourcing and the
subsequent loss of skills.
"CIOs are having trouble finding people, and it's not just IT
skills, but people with business backgrounds," he said. "It's not
just IT people for IT's sake, but people who can commercialize
projects."
Lazberger said there is a general lack of skills and experience
and "the second is more important than the first."
"The effect of the skills shortage depends on the business
requirements and what their needs are e- from network
administration to database development to project management," he
said.
"I don't think there is any relevance to size, because there is
no formula for how big your IT shop should be," Lazberger said.
According to the 2006 State of the CIO Survey, which interviewed
275 local CIOs, IT departments are buried under the weight of a
backlog of requests.
Compiled by Computerworld's sister publication, CIO magazine,
the survey found 37 per cent of respondents plan to increase
headcount over the next 12 months; while 59 per cent expect no
change, a paltry 4 per cent will reduce staff.
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