IT companies take responsibility for skills development

The recent report published by the IT&Telecom companies makes it very clear that the responsibility for addressing the skills shortage in the sector is shared between representatives of the education system and industry.

In his reply(Brännpunkt 8/4) to Ulla Hamilton's, Chris Heister's and my debate article on the IT skills shortage in Stockholm, Jan Hellgren points out that our proposals do not include what the IT industry itself can do about the shortage. However, the report on which the article is based makes it very clear that the responsibility for the measures is shared between representatives of the education system and the industry. The proposals for action also explicitly mention skills development for existing staff.

Hellgren has a point in that IT companies are struggling with the classic dilemma for all skills supply, which can be described a little harshly and a bit rallying as "in boom times we don't have time, in recession we can't afford". It is a fact, however, that despite good times, we have fierce competition, not least in the IT consulting field, with many companies having to turn over every krona charged to convert it into skills development. However, Hellgren suggests that companies are not taking this problem seriously enough, and that they prefer to attract skills from competitors rather than develop the skills of their existing staff.

This is of course completely wrong. With the technological developments we have seen over the last 20 years, and the successful IT companies that exist in Sweden, it goes without saying that the industry has been very successful in learning new skills. Most companies see nurturing and developing the skills they have as their top strategic priority, especially in light of the insufficient supply of skills from the education sector. A growing number of companies have trainee or equivalent programs in place to secure their livelihood, knowing that not offering employees long-term skills development is absolutely devastating from both a business and a brand-building perspective. Of course, individual IT companies can do even more to secure their own skills supply, but there are limits to what individual companies, especially smaller ones, can take responsibility for the industry's overall skills supply. Collaborative efforts are needed here with representatives of the education system at all levels, from primary school to vocational training and higher education, to solve the skills shortage at the macro level.

Anne-Marie Fransson, Director of the IT&Telecom Association