Christchurch Tech Employer Discussion – A Gathering of Employers to Discuss Ideas to Tackle Talent Shortages

Over the last few months there have been a lot of conversations, plus chatter on social media, about the issues facing tech companies trying to hire new staff. The issues vary, but in the last 18 months, the situation has undoubtedly become much more acute due to Covid-19, with incoming skilled immigration reduced to near-zero, and increased competition from overseas for NZ skilled workers. This is unlikely to change in the short to medium term, but here at Canterbury Tech, we figured it was time we pulled together a group of tech employers to summarise the current state of play and kick-around ideas for ways in which we might work together to address the various issues to some degree.

If this is all you need to know to get involved, please register here for this gathering at Ara, from 4:30pm on Wednesday 24th November. Please note this is intended for technology employers in Canterbury, and is not for those who might be seeking a job! We do reserve the right to decline your registration.

If you’d like to do some more reading to understand the background and some of the other documents and initiatives that are relevant in some way or another, please continue reading!

Background Documents and Initiatives Already Brewing

Some of you may have fed into the Digital Skills Aotearoa Report which does a pretty good job of identifying some of the longer-term structural issues that need to be dealt with, and which the Digital Industry Transformation Plan aims to tackle through various Skills Workstream initiatives (draft doc due out soon).   

The long term solution is – that there is no single solution, and that multiple interventions will be required on multiple fronts over different time-horizons, but that the major pre-Covid issue was one of a mismatch between the supply of skilled talent and industry demand. To quote from the Digital Skills Report “… indicates a skills shortage for senior experienced capabilities and an oversupply of underskilled graduates. To solve this problem, organisations have increasingly relied on immigration to access the required digital skills at the required time.”

It is hardly surprising then that the Covid-related reduction in immigration has exacerbated the situation!

These issues aren’t going away, and Canterbury Tech would like to pull together a group of technology employers who are experiencing issues right now, to see how we might work together in a few areas to alleviate the effects over the next 12months or so. We’re not intending to undermine or duplicate national initiatives that are likely to emerge, instead identify things we can do to pull together as a local group and have a useful impact. We DO have a few ideas for potential solutions to address various issues and will share these at the discussion on 24th November. We hope you come along brimming with ideas too, as we certainly don’t claim to have all the answers.

Please contact Neil Hamilton, GM of Canterbury Tech at neil.hamilton@canterburytech.nz or 027 44 11 849 to find out more.