IT staff shortage looms as demand skyrockets

HCM City (VNA) - An additional 100,000 information technology workers will
be needed in HCM City by 2010, according to participants at an IT seminar
held in HCM City on Sept. 25.

More than 6,000 local and foreign IT companies are operating in HCM
City , 50 percent growth compared to last year.

The IT industry this year contributed 1.5 percent of the city's GDP and by
2015 the amount is expected to be 3 percent, according to the city's
Department of Information and Communications.

The application of IT in tourism entertainment, banks and securities
companies has become wide-spread.

Pham Ngoc Tuan, general director of the Sai Gon Postel Corporation, said
Vietnam 's membership in the World Trade Organisation had opened up trade
and created more opportunities in the industry.

Many of the world's leading IT companies have set up operation in the
country and introduced the latest IT technologies.

A staff shortage in the industry, however, looms.

Ha Van Liem, deputy general director of Global Cybersoft, a software
producer, predicted it would need 1,000 more engineers through 2010.

HCM City has around 25,000 IT engineers in the software and hardware
industry. In 2004, there were 18 universities offering IT training, but that
has risen to 24 schools, training 10,000 new graduates every year.

Companies, however, complain about the quality of the IT graduates.

According to a survey conducted by HCM City-based Quang Trung Software
City , more than 46 percent of IT engineers lack professional knowledge and
most job candidates have to receive additional training from the companies
that hire them.

The lack of foreign language skills is also a serious problem among IT
engineers, as more and more foreign IT firms open offices in Vietnam .

Forty percent of IT graduates cannot speak English, and many IT programmes
do not include English classes.

Lack of creativity and practical, rather than theoretical, knowledge are two
other concerns.