the Labour Market Survey Report - Council of European ...

5.3 Improving Validity of Estimates and Forecasts
a) The IDC study asserted shortfalls for each country and “skill category” as the difference between
the estimated demand and supply for that skill area. These are reported to be calculated as
follows:
• “Demand for ICT workers is estimated through a detailed analysis of numbers of IS
departments, ICT-intensive business units, and numbers of companies in demand for IS
support in the European economy, their size and evolution over time as a result of changing
IS needs. Changing ICT skills needs and gap evaluation are also developed through close
monitoring of ICT job-search sites, and unfilled positions over time”
• “Supply of ICT workers is estimated through the assessment of two major important
segments:
- the number of current ICT workers available in the market (less average attrition rates);
- the number of new ICT workers becoming available from university/college graduation,
through re-training from other industry sectors or from other business units in the same
company, as part-time workers from third party labour providers, as skilled and topmanagement
workers from other industries.”
According to these definitions, it should be possible to reconcile the IDC figures for supply for
past years with the actual employment levels. As indicated, the employment levels in the case of
the UK are around 50% of the asserted IDC figures for ICT workers. It is true that the UK figures
used do not include non-IT occupations of any kind, and do not include engineers or technicians
of a kind that would be employed in Telecommunications work (they do not cover the “C” of
ICT). However, the non-technical occupations are not relevant to a study aimed at understanding
possible skill shortages of IT occupations, and the (hardware) engineers and technicians are
known to constitute a comparatively minor workforce (less than 10% of the IT occupation
working population).
b) Ideally skill shortages would be estimated directly, from reported hard-to-fill vacancies from
a pan-EU survey of employers with the same questions and adequate samples conducted at
the same time. In the absence of such evidence, it is almost impossible to make meaningful
cross-country comparisons in terms of more detailed occupational categories. However, what is
known about labour markets measured in a consistent way over a period is their growth. Thus,
if a labour market for a particular occupation grows over a year by, say, 10,000, then the number
of people required in that year with the relevant skillset is 10,000 + the number who withdraw
from that occupation during the year (the replacement demand arising from “attrition”). The
additional supply each year in the future can therefore be estimated from the best forecasts of
growth, together with an assumption about the replacement demand rate (normally expressed
as a percentage of the total - “stock” - level). Since Eurostat holdings of Member State Labour
Force Survey data enable a relatively consistent measure of national levels of employment in
each occupation, this provides a significantly more consistent and valid way of estimating future
demand, against which policy responses can be considered. This approach inevitably depends
fundamentally on the validity of forecasts, but the accuracy of the growth rates used in the IDC
and Career-Space forecasts depend likewise on the reality of economic growth, in relation to that
assumed.
C E P I S I.T. PRACTITIONER SKILLS IN EUROPE | Section 5 | 75