Dive Brief:
- A dearth of technical skills is preventing businesses from infusing operations with new technologies, according to an Infosys report published last week. The company commissioned a survey of 1,000 senior business leaders for the study.
- Nearly three-quarters of surveyed executives said the pace of technological change surpassed their company's capacity to incorporate it into operations.
- Pressed to find skills in a tight tech labor market, around 4 in 5 respondents said they prefer employees who are knowledgeable across multiple technology solutions over single-specialty experts.
Dive Insight:
Organizations must quickly deploy novel technologies to respond to market pressures and customer demands. Despite devoting resources and time to bring projects to fruition, companies often struggle to hire the talent that can bring them to life.
Specific categories are a clear and ongoing struggle for the enterprise. Infosys found a gap of eight percentage points between current skills and availability in roles related to advanced statistical analysis. Respondents reported similar shortfalls in machine and deep learning and cloud computing expertise.
Though recent official data points suggest an uptick in unemployment among IT roles, indicators of demand persist. Organizations added 185,000 new tech job postings last month, bringing the total of open jobs to 436,000, according to CompTIA.
Generative AI represents a top staffing challenge. Training in this specific technology category will be a priority as companies shape their talent strategies, according to Infosys.
"To close these gaps, leading companies are increasing budgets for upskilling initiatives," the report said. "Hands-on training in AI, ML, advanced analytics and cloud technologies will be critical to ongoing success, and this highlights the need to balance skills required for basic infrastructure, such as the cloud, with those needed for emerging technologies such as AI."
