Focus on growth, not loss of jobs
26. May 2016
What is the current situation in Denmark? Do we lack it competences – or not?
If I look at the news flow from May, we was informed that Intel is closing their development center and firing 250 employees in Northern Jutland. On the other hand, Microsoft is working on establishing a data center in Denmark, bringing many new jobs to our country. And just the other day, we read an article in Computerworld about the career days at the Computer Science Institute at Copenhagen University, where a large amount of Danish IT businesses were searching for hundreds of newly educated IT developers.
There are many news and debates, and it can be difficult to navigate and evaluate. Do we lack developers, or not?
The demand for specific IT skills are constantly changing – and it is changing faster than we can adapt the supply. If we only focus on supply and demand within Denmark borders, it is an equation with no solution. There will always be too many or a lack – and both will hinder growth. Too many IT specialists is expensive to the state, while a lack of IT specialists is expensive for the companies.
It is our belief that many companies limit themselves, when they only think about hiring competent Danish IT resources, due to the fear of losing “Danish” jobs to foreigners. But if there is one thing which truly costs job, it is lack of growth. If we cannot find the IT competences in Denmark that will help increase the growth, we have to find it elsewhere. Or be without growth.
In other contexts, we have no problems with opening our mental shutters towards the rest of the world in recognition of the borders and nationalities have become more and more fluent, and that it has become a reality that we so to speak, can be close to each other far away. But why do we then suffer from collective colleague-fright in the belief that as soon as we get south of the German border, then it is just impossible to cooperate? And if we move even further away, our concerns grow almost proportional to the distance in kilometers.
We have worked with sourcing of IT professionals from Ukraine to Denmark for many years. Our Scandinavian customers have a close and good cooperation with our Ukrainian developers in Lviv. A collaboration that takes place in an orderly manner very similar to what we know at home: low employee turnover, high reliability, high work ethic, acceptable wages and working conditions, language skills, close in time zones and with a stable infrastructure.
If we open our mental shutters towards the rest of the world in our search for the right IT skills, we provide room for growth. We gain access to a greater supply and variety of skills, and can constantly adjust our actual workload. We can even out the imbalances, optimize growth conditions – and create more jobs in Denmark.
