ICT and associated professionals

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have played a major role in shaping employment growth in the developed world, especially in the services sectors. In developing contexts, considerable importance is attached to the need to develop the human resources for both the production and consumption of ICT-based products and services. This chapter considers factors affecting the supply and demand of ICT workers in South Africa. In the case of training supply, the analysis reveals that a very small proportion of learners graduating from the schooling system are receiving formal tuition in ICT, or have used computers in the process of learning. At the post-school level, it is clear that private training organisations are providing the bulk of focused professional training. The patterns of demand and supply identified suggest that the rhetoric around general ICT "skills shortages" is frequently exaggerated and should be best understood in terms of time-based shortages in specific skills that can coexist alongside areas of oversupply.