IT skills crisis – an urban legend?

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IT skills crisis – an urban legend?

Companies complain that they are unable to meet employment equity quotas because of the shortage of qualified and experienced black people. Emigration, early retirement and quitting because of deteriorating working conditions and relatively low wages are said to be to blame for the lack of skilled human capital.
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There's no shortage of skills - there's a shorage of BLACK skills as the article said.

I know plenty of skilled IT workers who can't get jobs because of their skin colour.
 
Haha the skill shortage in IT RSA is not one of there is to little "qualified" people, heck think these days everyone is running around with an A+ or MCSE qualification...but there are too many of those (with too little experience) and not enough specialist's or guys with degree's that are competent . IT unlike engineering and medicine is not something an university alone can prepare u for, U need to get your hands dirty, cause the world out there in the corporate world is totally different to text book diagrams or little lab experiments.
And what they dont teach these guys is that u must be tough, must be able to deal with idiots (without assaulting them physically..trust me its hard). And U must be able to take extreme amounts of pressure, any IT Admin who ever did data recovery know what I'm talking about (sitting there for the fourth day in a row without sleep is not fun (and has a way of pissing of the woman @ home)
And IT is not glamorous as many people tend to think or thought it to be, u dont just sit in an office all day, any techy that opened up a 5 year old pc know what I mean by that..its a dirty job....and thats my point, these kids dont necesarily know what they are jumping into, they think IT to be an nice an peaceful or whatever industry, where it is really tough..and only those with a real passion for the industry (or love of money) are able to stay in it
 
Skills shortage - another Corporate excuse

Skills shortage - it has nothing to do with skin colour or skills but has everything to do with the shortsightness of companies in applying JIT management (Just In Time). This problem was known many, many years ago but companies refused to invest and train people (of colour), now they are crying wolf.
Unfortunately or fortunately (Depends on what side of the colour line you sit) EE targets are not going to go away, 2014 is still a while away and if the government of the day believe that the desired impact is not achieved then this will simply be extended. So companies should wake up and get moving with training and invest.
For now though it is correct in saying that too many people are working in the incorrect jobs (round pegs in square holes), and firms are not savy enough to spot this and use the skills shortage as their defense.....It is not going to make the problem go away and companies will have to deal with it sometime or another. Are there any brave Execs willing to finish the job and not leave it for the next person...
 
UglyKidJoe said:
That's quite a bold statement.

It's a bold statement yes, and maybe the way I stated it wasn't exactly what I meant by it. What I meant to say was that universities and colleges try and teach u as much as they can, which is good and that training is necessary. But.. They can't teach u everything and to some that might prove a problem. They're are to many variations of problems that could duck up, that its impossible for an university to train someone ready to walk into an real life situation able to be fully self 'empowered ', that oke will still need a senior oke showing him the ropes.

Umm, it's not exactly the film industry bro. :cool:
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Didn't mean glamorous in that sense of the word..what I meant was dont expect to be working in a suit and tie
 
Elfpierre said:
Skills shortage - it has nothing to do with skin colour or skills but has everything to do with the shortsightness of companies in applying JIT management (Just In Time). This problem was known many, many years ago but companies refused to invest and train people (of colour), now they are crying wolf.
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I laugh at that.
I am in IT and have been for a number of years.
We have had some black developers come through our offices, 1 out of the 3 had real skill and the other 2 are still doing enough to get by. The 1 who had real skill lasted 6 months and then went to another company who offered him more money. The other 2 arent good enough to be stolen so they remain.

Here is a broken down version of what im saying:

If you have a "person of colour" that you have trained according to your long term planning solution then they will leave you for more money as all companies are needing highly skilled black people. You can always try to keep them but then you end up paying more and more and more and then its not financially viable.

I have seen it in every facet of IT that I have worked in, someone has skill and everyone is after them, it keeps the company's equity status up and they have someone who can actually do the job.

Its just basic reality.
 
SharkBait said:
You mean the lack there-off. The only problem I have with my job, it the tipslip at the end of each month. :D
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ha ha, well I dont complain about my salary, sure one can always do with more cash but its not a bad living. And not to shabby concerning the fact that I only have a one year course (yes..u guessed it MCSE) and a some paperwork for Cisco(CCNA) and Linux(RHCT and Linux+), the rest is all pure experience. :) Cause I'm a lazy bugger and dont go down well with class rooms.
 
What they miss (IMHO).. to be a developer.. you must have skills, brains and be prepared to work your a$$ off.

You must know that you'll sit for 99.9% of the day in front of a pc and SOLVE issues/puzzles/problems/etc. You'll learn new tech each week. It's not a fancy job... example... I work for a large recruitment agency ... and guess what. I get my salary... BUT the sales people get company CARS for sales etc. They get HUGE incentives etc... what do I get... guess... my salary. (Without our (IT) help, their sales wouldn't be possible)

IT is just that for most companies.. IT... nothing fancy (you are just IT). When everything goes 100%, you hear nothing. 1 thing goes wrong.... you'll hear it.

So why would anyone go into IT, when you can have a nice 8-5pm job with nice salary or even company car.

Edit: But I still love what I do ... Except for stupid users phone me...
 
TelkomUseless said:
What they miss (IMHO)

IT is just that for most companies.. IT... nothing fancy (you are just IT). When everything goes 100%, you hear nothing. 1 thing goes wrong.... you'll hear it.
.
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agree ten-fold...(but ok I work in support not development) but same counts there, u are really just a "back end service" to these guys, (which is okay cause u can pitch at work in jeans and a t-shirt at most companies). People hate U when they **** up their own PC's, cause your techies should have kept them running...and dont even try and explain that actually their stupidity is at play nooo then the little bastard child will really start screeching in your ear.....but hey I love my industry...I dont have to be nice to people, and tend to have enough reason to just ignore them...oh and even worse (and this is so off topic) is when the end users expect u, to free of charge give them advise on their home computers (some even try bring it in), now seriously what makes them think I'll give them free advise? U dont see lawers walking around giving out free legal advise do you?
 
<moLe> said:
People hate U when they **** up their own PC's, cause your techies should have kept them running...and dont even try and explain that actually their stupidity is at play nooo then the little bastard child will really start screeching in your ear.....but hey I love my industry...I dont have to be nice to people, and tend to have enough reason to just ignore them
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You may find that in any industry, not necessarily IT, this attitude doesn't bode well with clients.

...just a little career advice for free ;)
 
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<moLe> said:
ha ha, well I dont complain about my salary, sure one can always do with more cash but its not a bad living. And not to shabby concerning the fact that I only have a one year course (yes..u guessed it MCSE) and a some paperwork for Cisco(CCNA) and Linux(RHCT and Linux+), the rest is all pure experience. :) Cause I'm a lazy bugger and dont go down well with class rooms.
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Agreed, I also have more experience than paperwork and lately (been for a few interviews) it seems that paperwork is more important for them than experience... I believe it should be the other way around. :o
 
<moLe> said:
agree ten-fold...(but ok I work in support not development) but same counts there, u are really just a "back end service" to these guys, (which is okay cause u can pitch at work in jeans and a t-shirt at most companies). People hate U when they **** up their own PC's, cause your techies should have kept them running...and dont even try and explain that actually their stupidity is at play nooo then the little bastard child will really start screeching in your ear.....but hey I love my industry...I dont have to be nice to people, and tend to have enough reason to just ignore them...oh and even worse (and this is so off topic) is when the end users expect u, to free of charge give them advise on their home computers (some even try bring it in), now seriously what makes them think I'll give them free advise? U dont see lawers walking around giving out free legal advise do you?
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Well said.. back end service / slaves ;) is the correct term.

And people wonder why IT is not the career of choice by people.
 
Finally someone is listening to what I have been saying all along, namely the fact that the skills crisis is an urban legend.

They always say there are so many jobs out there, yet there are so many people who do have the skills who are unemployed or who cant get a proper paying job. Myself included.

The reason for the apparent skills crisis is the fact that companies don't want to pay people properly.

Also I have a strong suspicion that companies are throwing up the supposed skills crisis as way of ultimately trying to justify the need to bring overseas skills in.

Together with pressure form overseas IT markets like those in Asia looking to send people here, we could ultimately see jobs being given too foreigners.

This is bad because we loose jobs and a stigma will be created whereby foreigners will seem better. To be fair though, the foreigners will probably be more hard wokring than us, and they will be more motivated not to fsck up because of all they invested in coming here.

We need to first use up all the local people we have then, if there are jobs left over then we can give them to the foreigners. Look what happened in America 10 years ago when they started sending all the work to India. I remember reading a very sad article in Wired magazine about programmers loosing their jobs.
 
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