Service Providers in the Information Industry Often Provide Training in New IT Professions

Service providers in the information industry place great value on training in new IT professions, such as IT specialists or IT-system electronics technicians. In total, around 40% of all turnover in this economic sector is generated by companies who offer training in these new IT roles.

In particular, it is telecommunications service providers, who generate around 95% of their turnover in this way, who are training up promising talent in-house in the face of the continued shortage of skilled professionals in the ICT sector.

These are the findings of a survey carried out among Information and Communication Technology (ICT) service providers (firms providing computer service and leasing, ICT-specialised trade as well as telecommunication services) and knowledge intensive service providers (firms in the branches of tax consultancy and accounting, management consultancy, architecture, technical consultancy and planning, research and development as well as advertising). Around 1,200 businesses took part in the survey carried out by the Mannheim Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in collaboration with Creditreform, Neuss, in April 2002.

Training in new IT careers is also widespread in research and development firms, advertising agencies and software providers and lenders. The companies providing training in these roles generate more than 50 per cent of the turnover for their respective sectors. By comparison, ICT-specialised traders and business consultants are less likely to provide training in these roles, with companies who provide training only contributing 30 per cent and 20 per cent respectively to the total revenue of their sector.

Service providers in the information economy are also providing training in more traditional vocational professions. Companies that provide training generate in total almost 70 per cent of all revenue. Out of these companies, tax advisers and certified public accountants as well as advertising agencies put particularly great stock in in-house training. In these sectors, firms who provide training produce more than 90 per cent of the total revenue.

Telecommunications service providers and ICT-specialised traders are experiencing particular difficulty in finding suitable trainees, with the turnover share of businesses affected by these difficulties amounting to more than 60 per cent and 40 per cent respectively. Largely untroubled by such concerns are firms in the research and development (turnover share of around 2 per cent), advertising (around 8 per cent) and tax accountancy and auditing (around 14 per cent) sectors.

The business survey among IT-related service providers is a study following the economic survey carried out amongst business-related service providers by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, in collaboration with the credit reference agency Creditreform, Neuss, which has been conducted since the second quarter of 1994. Starting the first quarter of the year 2002, ZEW extended the survey to include IT-related service providers. The results of the study will from now on be published in the ZEW Sector Report on Service Providers of the Information Society. The extended survey was conducted in light of the ongoing structural changes which gave rise to a increasing expansion of information and communication technologies (ICT). The survey has a strong focus on service industries that make extensive use of ICTs. This economic branches can be divided into two sectors: ICT service providers (firms providing computer service and leasing, ICT-specialised trade as well as telecommunication services) and knowledge intensive service providers (firms in the branches of tax consultancy and accounting, management consultancy, architecture, technical consultancy and planning, research and development as well as advertising).

A selected, representative cross-section of 4000 service providers is surveyed quarterly by the ZEW. The random sample is frequently refreshed by start-up companies.

Contact

Dr. Margit Vanberg, E-mail:vanberg@zew.de