{ "title": "The Global Competition for Technology Talent – IMF Finance & Development Magazine | March 2019", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/03/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa", "canonical": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/03/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa", "overlayPath": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/03/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa/index.md", "summary": "Countries are finding their fortunes increasingly tied to their ability to attract a limited pool of qualified technology workers.", "sections": [ { "heading": "Overview", "content": "- Countries, cities, and firms are increasingly competing to attract a limited pool of qualified technology workers as tech roles expand across industries.\n- Tech spending was expected to grow to $3.7 trillion last year, up 6 percent from 2017, according to Gartner Inc.\n- Companies and governments are using financial incentives, tax breaks, relocation packages, and targeted programs to recruit or train tech talent." }, { "heading": "Global shortage and economic stakes", "content": "- Technology and science jobs in the United States outnumbered qualified workers by roughly 3 million as of 2016 (Randstad NV).\n- By 2030 there will be a global shortage of more than 85 million tech workers, representing $8.5 trillion in lost annual revenue (Korn Ferry).\n- Projected shortages by economy (Korn Ferry):\n - Brazil, Indonesia, and Japan: up to 18 million workers apiece.\n - United States: 6 million.\n - Russia: 6 million.\n - China: 12 million.\n- The tech share of US GDP has surged more than sixfold since 1980 (PwC), while employment in the sector has not expanded materially." }, { "heading": "Employer and government recruitment strategies", "content": "- City- and country-level initiatives:\n - Wellington, New Zealand: flew in 100 high-skilled workers and their families to interview with local tech firms; more than 48,000 people from 28 countries applied.\n - Amsterdam/Netherlands: offers a 30 percent income tax exemption for foreign workers (“the 30 percent rule”), making hiring expats attractive.\n - Portugal: offering residency and the prospect of eventual citizenship to tech workers and entrepreneurs; programs to incentivize hiring and reinvestment.\n - India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Skill India in 2015 to nurture tech skills in the younger generation.\n - China: sends millions of young students overseas for secondary education and technology training; has had limited success attracting them back and attracting foreign talent.\n- High-profile corporate-location competition:\n - Amazon’s second headquarters contest resulted in incentives worth nearly $2.5 billion from selected locations (New York City and Arlington, Virginia); plans for a New York base were later abandoned following objections." }, { "heading": "Employer responses and mobility", "content": "- Firms across sectors (software, retail, finance, municipalities) increasingly compete aggressively for data scientists, software engineers, programmers, and cloud computing experts.\n- Remote work expands the talent pool but increases cross-border poaching risks.\n- Examples:\n - Darren Kidd, a 32-year-old developer, moved from Perth to Wellington in August to join Xero Limited; pay comparable when adjusted for cost of living and quality-of-life factors were decisive.\n - Pedro Presa chose the Netherlands over London and Berlin for ease of hiring expats and tax incentives; Mycujoo set up in 2014 and opened an office in Lisbon two years ago; Mycujoo now has 18 employees and expects to hire three dozen more in the next year." }, { "heading": "Training, local development, and retention challenges", "content": "- Where recruiting from abroad is infeasible, companies and governments invest in local training:\n - Google launched a free training program in March 2017 aimed at closing the digital divide; Google expects to train 10 million high-skilled workers in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.\n - Ndubuisi Ekekwe (First Atlantic Semiconductors & Microelectronics, founded 2010) partners with local universities to run workshops and develop courses to groom specialized workers.\n- Retention tactics and constraints:\n - High-skilled workers trained locally can be poached by multinational firms or foreign-funded start-ups.\n - To reduce poaching, some firms relocate operations (example: Ekekwe moved headquarters from Lagos to Owerri, a city of 1.2 million people, to be farther from competitors).\n - Wellington’s approach combined city-led recruitment with partnerships with domestic firms like Xero to boost success; natural amenities and quality of life were additional draws." }, { "heading": "Key takeaways and policy implications", "content": "- The competition for tech talent is driven by pure supply and demand dynamics and is becoming a public policy priority for many governments.\n- Successful strategies observed in the piece include:\n - Tax incentives and targeted residency/citizenship offers to attract foreign talent.\n - Large-scale recruitment campaigns and centralized hiring events to boost applicant pools.\n - Investment in training and partnerships with educational institutions to build local talent pipelines.\n - Nonwage factors—quality of life, family transition services, and cultural fit—play a significant role in attraction and retention.\n- Risks include escalating wage pressures, uneven geographic distribution of talent, and persistent global shortfalls that could translate into substantial lost revenue.\n\nThe Global Competition for Technology Talent – IMF Finance & Development Magazine | March 2019\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- التهافت على المواهب التكنولوجية\n - التهافت على المواهب التكنولوجية (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - التهافت على المواهب التكنولوجية (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- La lucha por el talento tecnológico ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2019\n - La lucha por el talento tecnológico ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2019 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - La lucha por el talento tecnológico ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2019 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Chasse aux talents technologiques\n - Chasse aux talents technologiques (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - Chasse aux talents technologiques (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Global competition for technology workers\n - Global competition for technology workers (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - Global competition for technology workers (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Борьба за таланты в области ИТ – Финансы и развитие – март 2019 года\n - Борьба за таланты в области ИТ – Финансы и развитие – март 2019 года (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - Борьба за таланты в области ИТ – Финансы и развитие – март 2019 года (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- 高科技人才争夺战 - 金融与发展\n - 高科技人才争夺战 - 金融与发展 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - 高科技人才争夺战 - 金融与发展 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/03/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa" } ], "bullets": [ "[Markdown version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/03/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa/index.md)", "[Structured JSON version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/03/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa/index.json)", "[Bundle manifest](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2019/03/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa/bundle-manifest.json)", "Authors: PEDRO NICOLACI DA COSTA", "Published: March 1, 2019", "Countries, cities, and firms are increasingly competing to attract a limited pool of qualified technology workers as tech roles expand across industries.", "Tech spending was expected to grow to $3.7 trillion last year, up 6 percent from 2017, according to Gartner Inc.", "Companies and governments are using financial incentives, tax breaks, relocation packages, and targeted programs to recruit or train tech talent.", "Technology and science jobs in the United States outnumbered qualified workers by roughly 3 million as of 2016 (Randstad NV).", "By 2030 there will be a global shortage of more than 85 million tech workers, representing $8.5 trillion in lost annual revenue (Korn Ferry).", "Projected shortages by economy (Korn Ferry):", "The tech share of US GDP has surged more than sixfold since 1980 (PwC), while employment in the sector has not expanded materially.", "City- and country-level initiatives:", "High-profile corporate-location competition:", "Firms across sectors (software, retail, finance, municipalities) increasingly compete aggressively for data scientists, software engineers, programmers, and cloud computing experts.", "Remote work expands the talent pool but increases cross-border poaching risks.", "Examples:", "Where recruiting from abroad is infeasible, companies and governments invest in local training:", "Retention tactics and constraints:", "The competition for tech talent is driven by pure supply and demand dynamics and is becoming a public policy priority for many governments.", "Successful strategies observed in the piece include:", "Risks include escalating wage pressures, uneven geographic distribution of talent, and persistent global shortfalls that could translate into substantial lost revenue.", "**التهافت على المواهب التكنولوجية**", "**La lucha por el talento tecnológico ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2019**", "**Chasse aux talents technologiques**", "**Global competition for technology workers**", "**Борьба за таланты в области ИТ – Финансы и развитие – март 2019 года**", "**高科技人才争夺战 - 金融与发展**" ], "related": [ { "title": "التهافت على المواهب التكنولوجية", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/ar/dacosta.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/ar/dacosta.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/ar/dacosta.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "La lucha por el talento tecnológico ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2019", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/es/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/es/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/es/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Chasse aux talents technologiques", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/fr/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/fr/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/fr/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Global competition for technology workers", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Борьба за таланты в области ИТ – Финансы и развитие – март 2019 года", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/ru/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/ru/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2019/march/ru/global-competition-for-technology-workers-costa.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "高科技人才争夺战 - 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