Philippines In Shortage, Not Just in Rice but with IT Experts

The country could face a major shortage of information technology (IT)-skilled workers, according to research company XMG.

In its recent report, Canada-based XMG said while there is a steady increase of IT workers in the country, the skill set of these workers might no longer fit the requirements of various technology companies.

The research firm said the average growth of the country’s IT labor grew at a rate of 10 percent in the last 10 years, and is projected to grow at a rate of 3 percent in the next 5 years.

XMG further said there is an insufficient skilled labor pool to sustain the total IT growth in the Philippines which is projected to grow by 30 percent to 35 percent year-on-year through 2010.

XMG said educational institutions and learning centers need to implement "ladderized degree programs" to boost the dwindling talent supply due to the growth of the Philippine offshoring industry and "the migration of IT skilled workforce to countries such as the US, Singapore, Canada, the Middle East and Europe," XMG statistician Benedict Dormitorio said.

According to XMG, the study identified the skills shortage in Python, VBScript, Perl, XML and programmers in the Philippines due to low incident count coming from the general IT population. For programming and business solutions, IT skills on SAS, SAP, Lotus Notes and MySQL will be increasingly difficult to source and companies must be prepared to pay a premium price to recruit these individuals, the study said.

The study further emphasized networking skills particularly those in network administration.

In terms of labor supply, majority of fresh talents will be sourced from Metro Manila making up 22 percent of the estimated 50,000 to 60,000 graduates each year, XMG said.

Source: Manila Bulletin Online
http://www.mb.com.ph/INFO20080411121576.html

by Joel D. Pinaroc