Lack of technology professionals worsened after the pandemic
Today, more than 100 thousand job vacancies are open in the technology area and are not filled. At this rate, the country could reach 2025 with an accumulated deficit of 797 thousand professionals, indicates the Brasscom's latest study (Association of Information and Communication Technology and Digital Technologies Companies), published in December 2021.
This scenario has been called a “technological blackout”, and its main cause is the large difference between the number of people trained in technology courses (53 thousand per year, according to Brasscom) and the demand for professionals in the market (159 thousand per year). year).
“Before 2020, the sector predicted a need for 250 thousand professionals by 2024. After the Covid-19 pandemic, the problem took on a much larger scale”, assesses Ítalo Nogueira, president of Assespro (Association of Brazilian Information Technology Companies). “Our biggest challenge is training the workforce so as not to fall further behind in the race of innovation and technological development.”
He explains that the pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of companies, increasing demand for labor. At the same time, these professionals began to work at home and, with the appreciation of the dollar, they exchanged national jobs for work for foreign companies, attracted by starting salaries of around US$ 2,000 (in Brazil, the average salary in the service sector Information and Communication Technology is R$ 5,028, according to Brasscom).
“Technology companies offer high remuneration, on average, 2.5 times higher than the average salary in Brazil. Even so, several professionals have chosen to work for international companies”, he agrees. Gustavo Caetano, CEO of Sambatech (edtech solutions for educational institutions, free courses, preparatory courses and companies).
“The huge shortage of labor makes it difficult to digitally transform businesses in all areas. Not only companies in the technology sector will suffer, but also all businesses that need digital, in some way, to grow”, adds Gustavo.
Technology education
Ítalo highlights that the technological blackout today is much more critical in the area of systems development. “This applies to all spheres, whether among developers, analysts, in the testing area, among people who work with digital platforms”, he adds.
For him, the answer to this problem is investment in education —from basic, so that young people have better training in Portuguese, mathematics and logic, to professional training specialized in technology.
“Companies, in partnership with governments, are already forming partnerships to advance in this field and include more women and young people in this market”, he says. “My medium and long-term vision is optimistic: when these formations start to produce results, we will be able, in five or six years, to at least tie the game and not have the deficit we see today.”
On its education front, iFood wants to contribute to reversing this situation with initiatives such as Tech Power (platform that gives access to courses and vacancies in technology), iFood Decola (course platform for delivery partners), the iLab (which “accelerates” professionals to work in the technology area) and the training itinerary of the new high school (which places technology on the students’ knowledge path).
With these and other actions, foodech has the goal of, by 2025, training and employing 25 thousand people from underrepresented groups in technology, training more than 5 million people for the work of the future and entrepreneurship and impacting 5 million students developing and promoting the teaching of Mathematics, Science, Engineering and Technology in the public education network.
Read more:
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How technology can accelerate the advancement of education in the country
