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Impact of tech talent shortage on SMEs

US Tech Talent Shortage: How to overcome tech hiring challenges?

Impact of tech talent shortage on SMEs

Do you know that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there are not enough skilled people to take them? An extensive new Korn Ferry report finds tech talent shortage is one of the biggest challenges that many companies would face in the coming years. With daily headlines about how robots, machine learning, and artificial intelligence technologies are making their way to dominate the workplace, companies are finding difficulties adapting to the new norms.

And the ongoing pandemic has disrupted tech companies, including established firms, in finding and engaging the top talent. If you are among them, here, you can find a solution to address the talent shortage and tech team-building problems.  

The talent shortage has far-reaching effects on SMEs in terms of 1. Slowing innovation 2. Fail to develop projects on time & meeting deadlines 3. Overburdens employees 4. Struggle to grow further

-said Sam Velu, eTeki Director of Key Accounts.

He has been in the talent acquisition industry for over two decades and has a clear understanding of shifts in the technology landscape and future work.  

Would you be interested in knowing the best solution for your top two hiring challenges? If yes, submit your top two challenges to get an hour of a free consultation with Amzur’s IT staffing experts. Our talent acquisition specialists pay attention to your challenges and come up with customized talent management strategies.

What is causing the U.S. tech talent shortage? Projected stats from 2020 to 2025:

According to the Manpower group, 46% of the U.S. employers reported finding tech talent is their primary concern. Here are the top reasons causing the tech talent shortage across the world.

  1. With the baby boomers beginning to exit their job roles, employers are finding difficulty in filling their positions. It is further making the talent acquisition process tedious and inefficient.
  2. Lack of skilled employees due to ever-evolving technologies in the market is another reason for talent shortage. The workforce needs more skilled workers like engineers and scientists than earlier. 
  3. By 2025, the U.S. will need to fill about 3.5 million jobs in the manufacturing industry alone. However, around 2 million jobs will go unfilled due to a lack of necessary skills. 
  4. Reluctance is another challenge for employers to find the best tech talent. Most employees are not ready to upgrade their skills to manage future jobs associated with automation technologies like Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other advanced tools. Hence, finding tech employees and building a team would be a nightmare for many business leaders and CEOs.

How has COVID-19 impacted tech talent demand?

There is always a scarcity for tech profiles, but today the gap is much more than ever. Even before the coronavirus hit the world, most of the companies were supposed to train their internal employees on some in-demand skills to fill the talent gaps. But, it hasn’t happened at a full scale. 

It is evident that the coronavirus outbreak exploded digital transformation on a large scale. And this raised the need for tech resources to handle various modern operations. Even in many cases, skill gaps have become crucial for companies to stay on top of the ongoing market and customer demands.

Hiring has stopped for many reasons and led companies to come out of their comfort zone to embrace modern technologies to remain competitive.

Top in-demand tech jobs and skills in 2020 and beyond:

Tech skills are imperative and indispensable in an organization’s growth. Here are a few top in-demand skills that always challenge companies to find and recruit.  

Cyber Security, Big Data, Software Engineers, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Cloud, Robotics, IoT, or Blockchain.

Many companies are facing challenges in finding the above tech roles on time and failing in delivering projects — which in turn impacts the longevity of a company.

Rise of tech talent amid Covid-19:

It’s been almost a year since the world has been fighting with the coronavirus. Though it affected many industries and businesses adversely, a few companies are still hiring for tech roles. The current ongoing economic slowdown has forced companies to focus on what skills and jobs are essential and how they can recruit and retain those roles safely. With the coronavirus impact, companies have changed their talent acquisition strategies overnight to stay competitive.

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What does this mean to your business?

Hiring data engineers, data professionals, and software engineers is never an easy task. The competition for these roles is still high, and companies are grappling to find the best resources within their geography and budget — yet unable to fill them on time. 
Having the best engagement strategy, ensuring job security, lucrative salaries, and impressive product or project portfolios would help you in getting resources quickly. The growing upward trend for data and software professionals is reinforcing companies to prioritize their hiring strategies according to market needs.   

The USA needs more tech role:

With the rapid changes in technology and customer needs, finding and hiring tech talent is becoming more and more difficult for companies. Moreover, hiring for a tech resource is taking an average of 66 days compared to 55 days in 2016. 

A cloud-based talent acquisition platform iCIMS says, hiring for tech roles is growing faster than conventional job roles since 2017. According to this report, only six positions were filled for every ten open positions — further complicating the hiring process and taking longer than usual. 

Even though the companies are able to fill software application developer roles, they are still struggling to find and fill positions like security analysts, data research scientists, and database administrators. 
Despite the increasing number of applicants for open positions, the following are the top reasons for the tech talent shortage in the USA.

  1. Lack of advanced skills — employees are reluctant to upscale their skills. 
  2.  Gender gaps in the tech industry — out of 28% of all STEM graduates, only 24% of women were hired. 
  3. Lack of qualifying candidates — companies find it increasingly difficult to find qualified technology applicants. 

Why is sustainable business growth important?

Sustainable business growth is a higher-level objective that any company wants to achieve in the long run. Sustainable business growth is a growth that is repeatable, ethical, and responsible to, and for, current and future communities.      
To achieve this, companies must have a clear understanding of market trends, customer expectations, technology evolutions, and a strong team. As companies are spearheading to grab the marketplace with the best offers and services, you must be ahead in embracing modern technologies and delivering top-notch solutions that guarantee you a competitive advantage. 

How to balance the tech talent shortage and growth?

As said earlier, a cohesive team of technology experts is instrumental in any company’s growth. But with the growing tech talent shortage across the globe, most of the companies are failing to find qualified candidates in their geographical locations and budgets.

Then, you might be thinking how can you achieve a perfect balance between the growing tech talent shortage and business growth? Here are the three best ways you can adopt to find and engage talent nevertheless of uncertain times.

Employee management and retention:

Employee management has become a crucial part of the hiring strategy in recent times. It includes employee engagement programs, training programs, and development culture for both employees and business growth together.

Healthy employees are happier and show the utmost attention and satisfaction towards their job roles. This, in turn, leads to better productivity, quality, and growth.

Gallup’s recent announcement that employee engagement in the U.S. had ticked up to 34% was seen as a sign of progress.

Hiring for on-demand tech roles:

A cohesive team with modern tech skills will make your business ahead of the competition curve. Similarly, finding the right talent for your specific project needs is not easy and would be a costly affair. 
If you want tech resources to engage with your internal team for a specific timeframe, you can either rely on offshore product engineering teams or dedicated extended development teams. Collaborating with an experienced and industry-specific IT staffing company will help you in getting the top talent on a project basis or in the long-term.

Building trust with deliverables:

Undoubtedly, meeting deadlines will improve the trust factor and explore new opportunities. Setting up an adept team of developers and driving them towards your long-term business goals will always be a secret sauce of success. Therefore, it is essential to build agile and flexible development teams for operational efficiencies, enriching client experience, and productivity. 

Read our latest blog to know more about the significance of meeting project deadlines


Recruiters have said to me, ‘We can teach people the tech skills, but we can’t teach them to be interested and passionate.’

-Gabrielle Hempel, Senior Security Analyst, Accenture

How IT staffing solutions can help you in filling tech talent gaps?

While the pandemic struck a blow on most of the sectors, the technology industry is finding new opportunities to help companies survive the uncertain times. But, finding qualified resources and hiring them is always a challenging game for most U.S. companies. 
Therefore, collaborating with a trusted IT staffing and technology partner could help you in filling the tech skills gap quickly than the traditional hiring process.
With the evolution of IT staffing services, finding tech resources has become easier for SMEs  than earlier. IT staffing companies like Amzur offer flexible staffing solutions that can address the growing tech talent shortage. 
Being in the industry for more than 15 years, we can understand the unique requirements of companies and strategize the hiring process to ensure the best talent on board. 
Our array of staffing services includes permanent, temporary staffing, contract to hire, and extended teams. Above all, we are a technology-driven company with mature processes and proven expertise in developing applications from scratch through our dedicated offshore development teams.  

Amzur’s success story:

Khameleon is one of our privileged customers for over a decade. They had an idea to develop an integrated solution for furniture dealers to run their business on one single, scalable platform for more productive, profitable, and interconnected businesses. Khameleon has approached Amzur to build its application with a modern technology stack. 


At the time we had limited resources and expertise in the new toolset. We have reached out to Amzur to help us put together a dedicated team of technology experts which in-turn enabled us to adopt newer technologies faster.

-Doug Angelone, President, Khameleon Software

How can you manage sustainable growth with the existing tech talent shortage?

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