How to address the tech talent shortage in the USA?

Amzur Technologies, Inc.
5 min readApr 9, 2021

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Do you know that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there are not enough skilled people to take them? An extensive new Korn Ferry report finds tech talent shortage is one of the biggest challenges many companies face in the coming years. With daily headlines about how robots, machine learning, and artificial intelligence technologies are making their way to dominate the workplace, most SMEs lack adapting new hiring norms.

The talent shortage has far-reaching effects on SMEs in terms of 1. Slowing innovation 2. Fail to develop projects on time & meeting deadlines 3. Overburdens employees 4. Struggle to grow further — said Sam Velu, eTeki Director of Key Accounts.

What is causing the U.S. tech talent shortage? Projected stats from 2021 to 2025:

According to the Manpower group, 46% of U.S. employers reported finding tech talent is their primary concern. Here are the top reasons causing the tech talent shortage across the world.

  1. With the baby boomers beginning to exit their job roles, employers are uncertain about filling their positions. It is further making the talent acquisition process tedious and inefficient.
  2. Lack of skilled employees due to ever-evolving technologies in the market is another reason for talent shortage. The workforce needs more skilled workers like engineers and scientists than earlier.
  3. By 2025, the U.S. will need to fill about 3.5 million jobs in the manufacturing industry alone. However, around 2 million jobs will go unfilled due to a lack of necessary skills.
  4. Reluctance is another challenge for employers to find the best tech talent. Most employees are not ready to upgrade their skills to manage future jobs associated with automation technologies like Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other advanced tools. Hence, finding tech employees and building a team would be a nightmare for many business leaders and CEOs.

How has COVID-19 impacted tech talent demand?

There is always a scarcity of tech profiles, but today the gap is much more than ever. Even before the coronavirus hit the world, most companies were supposed to train their internal employees on some in-demand skills to fill the talent gaps. But it hasn’t happened on a full scale.

The coronavirus outbreak exploded digital transformation on a large scale.

And this raised the need for tech resources to handle various modern operations. Even in many cases, skill gaps have become crucial for companies to stay on top of the ongoing market and customer demands.

Hiring has stopped for many reasons and led companies to come out of their comfort zone to embrace modern technologies to remain competitive.

Top 8 in-demand tech jobs and skills in 2021 and beyond:

According to recent studies, the below 8 are the growing tech jobs and skills in 2021.

  1. Cyber Security
  2. Big Data Analysis
  3. Software Engineers
  4. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
  5. Cloud Computing
  6. Robotics
  7. IoT
  8. Blockchain

The USA needs more tech role:

With the rapid changes in technology and customer needs, finding and hiring tech talent is becoming more difficult for companies. Moreover, hiring for a tech resource takes around 66 days compared to 55 days in 2016.

A cloud-based talent acquisition platform iCIMS says, hiring for tech roles is growing faster than conventional job roles since 2017. According to this report, only six positions are filled for every ten open positions — further complicating the hiring process and taking longer than usual.

Even though the companies can fill software application developer roles, they struggle to fill advanced positions like security analysts, data research scientists, and database administrators.

Here are the top 3 factors leading to a tech talent shortage in the USA

  1. Lack of advanced skills — employees are reluctant to upscale their skills.
  2. Gender gaps in the tech industry — out of 28% of all STEM graduates, only 24% of women are hired.
  3. Lack of qualifying candidates — companies find it increasingly difficult to find qualified technology applicants.
Growing tech skills demand in the USA

How to balance the tech talent shortage and growth?

As said earlier, a cohesive team of technology experts is instrumental in any company’s growth. But with the growing tech talent shortage, most companies fail to find qualified candidates in their geographical locations and budgets.

Then, you might be thinking about how you can achieve a perfect balance between the growing tech talent shortage and business growth? Here are the three best ways you can adopt to find and engage talent nevertheless of uncertain times.

1. Employee management and retention:

Employee management has become a crucial part of the hiring strategy in recent times. It includes employee engagement programs, training programs, and development culture for both employees and business growth together.

Healthy employees are happier and show the utmost attention and satisfaction towards their job roles. This, in turn, leads to better productivity, quality, and growth.

2. Hiring for on-demand tech roles:

A cohesive team with modern tech skills will make your business ahead of the competition curve. However, recruiting professionals with advanced skills is time-intense and a costly affair.

If you want tech resources to engage with your internal team for a specific timeframe, you can either rely on offshore product engineering teams or dedicated extended development teams. Collaborating with an experienced and industry-specific IT staffing company will help you hire the top talent on a project basis or in the long term.

3. Building trust with deliverables:

Undoubtedly, meeting deadlines will improve the trust factor and explore new opportunities. Setting up an adept team of developers and driving them towards your long-term business goals will always be a secret sauce of success. Therefore, it is essential to build agile and flexible development teams for operational efficiencies, enriching client experience, and productivity.

How can IT staffing solutions help you in filling tech talent gaps?

While the pandemic struck a blow on most of the sectors, the technology industry is finding new opportunities to help companies survive the uncertain times. But, finding qualified resources and hiring them is always a challenging game for most U.S. companies.

Therefore, collaborating with a trusted IT staffing and technology partner can help you fill the tech skills gap quickly than the traditional hiring process.

With the evolution of IT staffing services, finding tech resources has become easier for SMEs than earlier. IT staffing companies like Amzur offer flexible staffing solutions that can address the growing tech talent shortage.

With more than 15 years of industry experience, Amzur can understand your unique staffing needs and implement strategies to ensure the best talent on board.

Our array of staffing services includes permanent, temporary staffing, contract to hire, and extended teams. Above all, we are a technology-driven company with mature processes and proven expertise in developing applications from scratch through our dedicated offshore development teams.

Would you like to know which IT staffing solution can solve your tech team-building challenges?

Explore our tech talent acquisition strategies today.

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Amzur Technologies, Inc.
Amzur Technologies, Inc.

Written by Amzur Technologies, Inc.

Amzur is a trusted partner for Digital Transformation. Tailored IT Services, Cloud Solutions, ERP expertise, and AI-driven innovation to empower your business.

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