‘Urgent need’ to meet growing digital learning needs

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

One million New Zealand workers will need IT training in the next few years, and money is on the table for businesses who give it, says a new report on digital skills.

Building Digital Skills for the Changing Workforce, a report commissioned by Amazon Web Services (AWS), found employers who supported skills training programmes saw significant benefits. Ninety-one percent reported improved employee productivity, 79 percent achieved cost efficiencies, and 76 percent saw increased revenue.

EIT information technology ​​lecturer Tina Blumenthal says technologies are becoming critical in day-to-day life, and the need for digital skills cannot be underestimated.

“All businesses, whatever the size, are underpinned by information technology in some capacity. And the Covid-19 pandemic has only added another layer of complexity.

“The ongoing increase in demand for IT skills is happening across all industries and in particular, the small and medium-sized enterprises.”

She said smaller businesses often needed to quickly adapt their day-to-day operations simply to survive.

An example of this would be a retail business opening an online e-commerce shop, as Far East Coffee Co and Sunshine Brewery have.

But going online means dealing with cloud storage, customer privacy, data protection, security considerations, and staff who can run the systems, said Ms Blumenthal.

The report showed 80 percent of New Zealand workers surveyed reported they needed more digital skills to cope with changes in their jobs due to the pandemic.

Upskilling staff in digital skills is good for the bottom line, but employees want it too.

The research indicates those who train staff are rewarded. Of the businesses that offer digital skills training programmes, 80 percent reported higher employee retention.

Genevieve Lim, the Asia Pacific director for AlphaBeta, the company that wrote the report, said Covid-19 had accelerated the need for more training for both tech and non-tech workers.

“Transitioning into a digital-first economy will help countries' recovery from Covid-19 and secure a stronger economic future,” she said.

“There is an urgent need for governments to work together with employers, training providers, and workers to meet these diverse and growing digital learning needs.”

Although the report shows 97 percent of organisations see a need to train their workers in digital skills, only 25 percent have implemented a plan to do so.

Ms Blumenthal said EIT in Tairāwhiti offers multiple levels of computing courses, from a Bachelor of Computer Science degree down to the certificate level.

“Our goal in the School of Computing is to build the IT capacity in our community. It is changing times, and we do understand the challenge.”

The benefits for those who work in IT are financially huge, with the sector coming out on top according to the jobs advertised on TradeMe in 2020.

The median pay offered for a job in IT was $105,000.

In 2021 the Government passed the Targeted Training and Apprenticeships Fund making most IT courses in the region free.

A benefit of taking the diploma is that you can leapfrog into the second year of a Bachelor of Computing Systems, effectively getting the first year free.

Keen learners will need to get in quickly. The fund paying for the diploma closes at the end of this year.