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Strategies & Market Trends : ahhaha's ahs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Keith Monahan who wrote (1533)	3/13/2001 11:37:45 AM
From: Ahda	Respond to of 24758

technology.scmp.com Experts warn of skills 'crisis' DOUG NAIRNE in Bangalore Next story -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Even as Cisco and other technology companies shed thousands of jobs, industry observers are still warning of a crippling skill shortage looming on the horizon. Many believe the crisis will become even worse than originally thought, as the talent gap spreads from hard skills such as engineering into soft skills such as human resources and customer service management. In India, which has one of the most aggressive training programs in the region, projections are for a shortage of 500,000 technical workers and three times as many managers and other support staff by 2006. "We'll have no more than 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the people we need in any one area," said KrishnaTanuku, president of Lucent Technologies India. "In my view this is going to cause significant problems in the industry." Mr Tanuku said the lack of skilled staff could jeopardise the continued growth of India's software industry, which has set a goal of US$60 billion in exports within the next five years. He said India would have only 5 per cent of the PhDs required to lead the way as the nation tries to make the next leap forward and move its booming IT sector beyond just providing low-cost services to North America and Europe. Ganesh Natarajan, managing director of Zenstar Technologies said India would need 2.1 million additional professional workers to meet its aggressive expansion plans. "By the time we get around to finding these people our target date of 2006 will have come and gone," he said. Mr Natarajan said the slowdown in the United States economy and the mass failure of dotcoms had seen a large number of Asians returning home, but that the numbers will still not be sufficient to meet the demand. Says DS it is quite possible that this will apply to much of our own country as West returns to the milder climate end of the Mid West. Breathing room Like India, most countries have responded to the projected shortage of skilled workers by pouring resources into technical training programmes, But with the increasing globalisation of the new economy, gaping holes in other skills were also becoming evident. V. Shankar, managing director and head of investment banking in Asia for Bank of America, said there would be increased demand for better training in all professional fields as companies were forced to look across continents to do business. "Companies need to develop the soft skills to manage an international workforce," he said. Singapore, China and other Asian nations face similar problems as they compete globally for talent. Prof Gong Ke, vice-president for research and development for China's largest technical school, Tsinghua University, said the education system on the mainland was being overhauled to meet the demand for skilled workers. "The problem is not only in terms of quantity, it is in terms of quality as well," he said. "Training has become too specialised and students do not have a wide enough base of education." Mr Gong said there are 100 jobs available in China for every computer science graduate and 27 jobs for every engineering graduate.