Solving the Shortage of IT Professionals
July 27 (Thursday) 2006
Toru Maegawa
Research Fellow
SUMMARY
- On January 19, 2006, the Japanese government unveiled the successor to the previous e-Japan Strategy and e-Japan Strategy
II: “The New IT Reform Strategy-Reforming Japan through IT”. The new strategy primarily consists of the following three policy
groups:
- A policy group for examining the potential of IT for structural reform and for using IT to solve various issues faced by Japanese society.
- A policy group for supporting the structural reform potential of IT and preparing the foundation for the anticipated ubiquitous network society.
- A policy group for contributing to global society via communicating to the world the results of the first two policy groups.
- One article included in the second policy group is “the fostering of internationally recognized advanced IT professionals”. One of the goals mentioned under this article is to promote the fostering of project managers, IT architects and other such advanced IT professionals, and to alleviate the mismatch in the demand and supply of advanced IT professionals in the industrial world.
The Fostering of Advanced IT Professionals within the New IT Reform Strategy
“The New IT Reform Strategy” stipulates that the plan for achieving this goal is “To pursue the expansion of human resource development programs and instructional materials by 2007 through industrial, government, and academic collaboration, and at the same time to use the results of these efforts to establish an institution for fostering human resources with the goal of alleviating the mismatch in demand and supply for advanced IT professionals in the industrial world by 2010.”
However, can these policies really eliminate the mismatch between the demand and supply for advanced IT professionals? Recently there has been a declining trend in the number of students seeking to enter the information systems sector. Regardless of how well equipped the environment for human resources development may be, if the number of talented young people interested in the field does not rise, then fostering human resources is impossible.
The Decline in the Number of Students Entering the Information Systems Sector
According to Mainichi Communication's “Report on the Results of the FY 2006 Survey Regarding College Students' Employment Attitudes” announced on March 23, 2006, the number of students hoping to enter the “information systems sector” was 4.1%. Though this was up 0.3 percentage points from the previous year, it shows a considerable decline compared with 5.3% in 2001 and 6.0% in 2002.
According to the same survey, students emphasized “a company where I can do the job I want to do” and “a company with job satisfaction” as important to their choice of companies. Further, students responded that they did not want to work in “companies with a dark atmosphere”, “companies with uninteresting job descriptions”, and “companies with strict quotas”.
College Students' Desired Occupations
| Occupation | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing & Sales Promotion | 12.4 | 13.8 | 15.7 | 16.17 | 17.4 | 18.4 |
| Product Planning/Development/Design | 14.4 | 13.3 | 14.2 | 13.8 | 15.0 | 15.0 |
| General Affairs/Accounting/HR | 16.2 | 15.2 | 15.2 | 15.8 | 14.8 | 15.0 |
| Research & Development | 12.3 | 13.0 | 10.4 | 9.3 | 9.8 | 9.8 |
| Advertising/Public Relations | 8.6 | 8.6 | 8.7 | 10.2 | 9.7 | 8.7 |
| Research & Planning | 7.9 | 7.9 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 6.7 | 6.4 |
| Overseas Operations | 6.0 | 5.4 | 6.0 | 6.5 | 6.2 | 5.7 |
| Information Systems | 5.3 | 6.0 | 4.8 | 4.1 | 3.8 | 4.1 |
| Technical Services | 2.6 | 3.0 | 3.2 | 3.1 | 3.0 | 3.3 |
| Mfg. Technology/Production Management | 3.4 | 3.3 | 2.8 | 2.7 | 2.6 | 2.7 |
| Other | 11.0 | 10.6 | 11.5 | 10.8 | 10.8 | 10.8 |
Source: Mainichi Communications, “Report on the Results of the Survey Regarding College Students’ Employment Attitudes”, FY 2002 through FY 2006 editions. Compiled by FRI.
Improving the Labor Environment is Key to Solving the Shortage of Talented IT Professionals
The reason for the lack of interest in the information systems sector may rest on problems in the field's labor environment. For instance, information systems jobs have longer overtime. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's “Report on the Results of the Monthly Labor Statistics Survey 2005” reported that overtime for all industry (including companies with five employees or greater) was 124 hours per year. According to the Information-technology Promotion Agency's “Survey on Operating Conditions in the Information Processing Industry”, announced in January 2006, the average yearly overtime in the information processing industry was 298 hours per year. This is almost 2.4 times the number of overtime compared with all industry. Similarly, total working hours per year for the information processing industry was 2,108 hours compared with an average of 1,816 hours for all industry, a difference of 292 hours per year.
The Nikkei Computer magazine also conducted an interesting survey on its website “IT Pro” in November 2005 regarding the labor conditions and attitudes of IT professionals (i.e. technicians involved with information systems development and operations). According to the survey's results, yearly overtime surpassed 570 hours for IT professionals. Additionally, the survey showed that 51.2% of IT professionals wish to change their jobs. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' “Detailed Results on the Labor Force Survey (period average for 2004)”, the number of workers in all industry who wished to change their jobs was less than 10%, and so the fact that one in two IT professionals wish to change their job is highly unusual from the perspective of the total labor force.
Creating a system for cultivating advanced IT professionals is of course important. However, before such a system can be created, it is necessary to fully investigate why young people don't wish to IT professionals in the first place, and to create measures to address these issues. If, for example, the cause lies in problems with the labor environment, such as chronic overtime, then the labor environment of the industry as a whole must be improved, and jobs for IT professional must be made attractive to students. If the jobs of IT professionals can be transformed into appealing job options, then talented people will naturally be attracted to the IT industry.