IS THERE A SHORTAGE OF IT WORKERS LOOMING?

Will the glob­al econ­o­my con­tin­ue to recov­er or will eco­nom­ic growth sput­ter, throw­ing coun­tries around the world into anoth­er reces­sion? No one knows for sure.

On the local front, yesterday’s Van­cou­ver Sun cit­ed a RBC Eco­nom­ics report that BC’s econ­o­my is pre­dict­ed to grow 3.3% this year and 3.1% next year.

If these fore­casts hold true, BC’s high-tech indus­try may face anoth­er short­age of staff. A lit­tle hard to believe, I know. But accord­ing to a BC Tech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion (BCTIA) report on labour trends released ear­li­er this year, high-tech com­pa­nies may face a short­age of work­ers again, sim­i­lar to the sit­u­a­tion we expe­ri­enced in 2007 and 2008.

One inter­est­ing quote from the report: “Despite the opti­mistic head­count pro­jec­tions pro­vid­ed by many respon­dents [that is, HR man­agers and senior man­age­ment of high-tech com­pa­nies in this province], the pro­jec­tion of the tal­ent crunch re-emerg­ing in late 2010 or ear­ly 2011 is a sur­prise to many respondents.”

The Labour Trends in the BC Tech­nol­o­gy Sec­tor report (PDF) is avail­able on the BCTIA’s web site.