workers per growth need digital tech

Australia’s next jobs boom will be in this industry(Source: Getty)Australian productivity and wage growth levels are crawling along at asluggish pace – but there’s one sector that can’t seem to hire fast enough.A new report from the Australian Computer Society (ACS) has highlighted adrastic shortage in Australia’s technology sector, which will need anadditional 100,000 workers by 2024.The forecasted growth rate of the tech sector is 2.3 per cent, which exceedsgrowth forecast for the Australian workforce overall at 1.3 per cent per annumfor the next five years.Plugging that gap has been described as a “huge challenge”, requiring a numberof shifts in policy – but the pay rise for workers from other industries whohave reskilled to meet demand for tech skills would actually be more than$11,000 per employee every year, according to the 2019 ACS Australia’s DigitalPulse report.“The wages of workers in other professional industries, including business-related fields, could be a relevant comparison point to technology workerwages,” it said.“Under this approach, the average benefit is estimated to be around $11,100per year – the difference between the average annual wage earned by technologyworkers (around $100,700 in 2018) and workers employed in professionalindustries ($89,600).”Regular Australians stand to benefit from a booming tech sector, too: thedigital industry’s contribution to GDP is expected to grow by 40 per centbetween 2018 and 2023.“That translates into the equivalent of an extra $2,500 for every person inAustralia every year.”## Where will the job gaps be?The majority of growth forecasted for the technology sector is slated to be inICT management, operations and technical occupations.Meanwhile, we’re expected to need 17,900 more software and applicationsprogrammers between 2018 and 2024, as well as management and organisationanalysts (+12,200) and other information and organisation professionals(+10,600).Story continuesThere will also be a greater need for more qualified IT professionals, with arising demand for tech workers with postgraduate, undergraduate and diploma oradvanced diploma degrees.## How do we fill the gaps?According to the report, it won’t be enough to just wait for the nextgeneration of IT graduates to enter the workforce.Instead, we have to tempt people currently in the workforce to switch jobs –and this requires greater investment in developing workers’ tech skills.“Investment in reskilling will not only enable immediate skills shortages tobe met, but will also ensure that Australia has the digital talent required toseize new opportunities created by the fourth industrial revolution andupcoming waves of digital disruption,” the report said.And in order to kick-start productivity and growth of the economy overall,Australia will also need to invest in new technologies, as well as betterfacilitate the current startup landscape and remove tax barriers.“To successfully implement emerging technologies in these industries, workerswill need both industry specialisation and technical ICT skills,” said thereport.“Reskilling existing workers in these industries will enable them to combinespecialist technical knowledge with the digital skills required, facilitatinginnovation and efficiency gains as new technologies are integrated intoexisting operations and roles.”The future of work will be discussed at the Yahoo Finance’s All MarketsSummit, which will take place on the 26th September 2019 at the Shangri-LaHotel, Sydney. Check out the full line-up of speakers and agenda here.