Will the Budget 2012-13 boost jobs in IT?

Chief executive of IT recruitment company Peoplebank, Peter Acheson, isn’t predicting a “boom” in IT employment but suspects IT employment will grow as a result of the budget.

The budget allocates $225.1 million to jobs, education and training child care fee assistance; and an additional $101 million will go to new skills measures to improve quality and support mature aged workers; and $1.7 billion secured for the National Partnership Agreement on Skills Reform.

“I would suspect IT will be a component of the skill resources we will bring in from overseas as well,” Acheson said.

Acheson added that the push to help support mature aged workers indicates the government recognises the “need to encourage greater diversity in our workforce” and “understands the looming skills crises”.

Telsyte senior analyst Rodney Gedda said that it’s difficult to predict if the Budget will help boost IT careers in the future, but initiatives in education and training that encourage people to get into IT as a career now “is a good thing”.

However, he said that how the government follows through with these initiatives will determine if there is success in building a more productive workforce in the future.

“I think a lot of it will depend on the initiatives carried forward with that funding. One thing is to throw money at a problem and another thing is to actually set up research and development centres, set up training centres and so on,” he said.

“Any government is always big on splashing around numbers, but whether the actual processes are carried through to [provide] new training facilities and new research and development facilities is a different story.”

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