Henry Manzano, CEO of TCS Latin América wrote an article for CIO Latinoamerica about this issue.

As regards the context, the expenditure on IT and Telecommunications will reach USD 4 million million in 2015, mainly aimed at new technologies such as mobility, the cloud and Big Data. In Latin America, total investments will grow 5.7% this year.

Considering this growth levels, companies must hire workers who own the skills that may satisfy the ever changing demands of their clients and who can adapt to dynamic edge technologies. Attracting and retaining talent is a major challenge for companies from all around the world and Latin America is no exception.

According to Manzano, there is an unbalance between an excessive number of IT vacancies and a scarce supply of qualified workers, particularly in Latin America. Meanwhile, companies compete to attract the most qualified employees.

This is in accordance with the results of the survey conducted by ManpowerGroup about Talent Shortage, which states that IT staff and engineers are among the top ten most difficult jobs to fill. 5 Latin American countries are among the 10 countries with greatest difficulties to fill such positions. These countries are: Peru, Brazil, Panama, Argentina and Colombia.

One of the causes for talent shortage is the low number of graduates who have the skills needed to work in the industry. To give a few examples, only 5% of graduates in Costa Rica have obtain a degree in IT or engineer, a percentage that goes to 14% in the case of Argentina.

Another cause is that around 90% of Latin American migrants are qualified professionals who are moving to developed countries in order to have development opportunities and competitive wages.

Manzano suggests fighting regional shortage by investing on professional training programs for employees. The core idea is to give employees the chance of developing their careers by providing training, challenging projects and long term development opportunities.

Another idea is to generate associations with universities and governments, promoting hiring opportunities. In addition, it is very important to consider the perception candidates and employees have of a company. There must be coherence between what a company says and what it actually does, particularly in matters such as technology and human resources policies.