AWS Hāpori Wāhine graduate Tori Newing. The Hamilton mother of four says a career in IT was way out of her comfort zone before the short course. Now she's training toward a career as a solutions architect or dev op. Photo / File
AWS Hāpori Wāhine graduate Tori Newing. The Hamilton mother of four says a career in IT was way out of her comfort zone before the short course. Now she's training toward a career as a solutions architect or dev op. Photo / File
Workers with advanced digital skills earn 19 per cent higher salaries than those with a similar education who do not use digital skills at work.
That’s according to a Gallup survey of some 32,000 people - including 1448 workers and 374 employers from New Zealand - commissioned by Amazon’s cloudcomputing wing, AWS (Amazon Web Services) and conducted in August and September 2022. Results were released this week.
The survey says the higher earnings of those who work in digital areas such as cloud architecture, artificial intelligence (AI) and software development contribute around $7.3 billion to New Zealand’s annual GDP.
The study found New Zealand near the top of the pack for Asia Pacific for its total number of workers with basic (36 per cent), intermediate (27 per cent) or advanced (9 per cent) digital skills. (Basic means the likes of word processing and email; intermediate equates to skills like drag-and-drop web design that need some training but not programming skills).
Source / AWS Asia Pacific Digital Skills Survey by Gallup
And although 77 per cent of New Zealand employers surveyed reported that digital skills will be important for their business over the next five years, two-thirds of them said it’s challenging to find the talent they need.
Over the past three years, we’ve seen an existing tech labour shortage exacerbated by Covid measures that turned off the immigration tap. Tech firms revitalised in-house training, ramped up diversity efforts and even turned to training prisoners in bids to top up the tech talent funnel.
But in the past few months, the wind has shifted, with the Big Tech multinationals laying off close to 100,000 staff (including some from their NZ offices) and, local operators like Xero, MYOB and Sky TV culling or offshoring hundreds of roles.
“I think there remains a pretty significant skills gap,” says AWS NZ country manager Tiffany Bloomquist.
“This is a long-term set of investments that we need to drive overall growth, not something that’s a short-term adjustment.”
And Bloomquist notes that of the firms who say digital skills will be important for their growth over the next half-decade, more than half plan projects in advanced areas like cloud architecture, AI and machine learning, where it’s toughest to recruit.
AWS NZ country manager Tiffany Bloomquist says while the tech job market is tightening a big skills gap remains. Of the firms who say digital skills will be important for their growth over the next half-decade, more than half plan projects in advanced areas like cloud architecture, AI and machine learning, where it’s toughest to recruit. Photo / File
“We see a lot of organisations who can’t migrate [to the cloud] or modernise as fast as they would like because of capability gaps, which indicates it’s hard for them to hire people with the right skills,” she says.
“But it’s not just about skills. It’s also about representation. So we continue to focus on areas where we feel there’s underrepresentation of talent; women in particular but also Maori and Pacific peoples. We have multiple programmes that we launched last year.”
AWS’ focus has been on short courses or “micro-credentials” through free, community-based learning aimed at adults who want to upskill - but find tertiary studies too intimidating or simply don’t have the time or money for university.
This week, Amazon announced an expansion of its re/Start programme that will be delivered through Te Pūkenga (NZ’s largest vocational training provider, created by the merger of 16 polytechs in 2020). re/Start aims to increase the number of Māori and Pasifika in the IT sector.
Hamilton mother-of-four Tori Newing - who recently completed a four-week course under AWS’s Hāpori Wāhine programme, positioning her to work towards AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification - told the Herald that she just didn’t connect with computer studies at high school.
Newing (35) had worked in roles in hospitality and office admin by the time a friend recommended Hāpori Wāhine. She was open to the idea, having developed an interest in computing via running a beauty business from home - the better to juggle motherhood and work - but was still worried when she had to bring her 3-month-old to her first lesson.
“As I drove up to Auckland I was thinking, I’ll just sit in the back and if it’s not quite right, I’ll make a quick escape. No one will notice. But as soon as I walked in the door, one of the course leaders welcomed me in, and she talked to my baby and made me feel really comfortable. She allocated a room for changing and feeding and that just made me feel so welcome. One of the biggest barriers was blown away.”
"We are focused on growing a diverse workforce and supporting new, less traditional pathways into tech," - Justin Gray, NZ managing director at AWS re/Start partner Datacom.
The logistical support is a key factor. The Gallup survey found lack of time for learning digital skills was a problem for nearly half of women, but only a third of men. For those who can’t make its classes, there are also remote-learning video options.
Newing is now follow-up studying to pursue a role as either a solutions architect or in “dev op” (someone who manages the process of creating an app, looking for efficiencies) - both roles she says were previously far beyond her comfort zone.
She says a lot of IT jobs offer flexibility around remote working, which is attractive to her. “The higher pay is also a motivator for me; to be able to work around the kids but earn a lot more.”
Bloomquist says a lot of employers are now open to micro-credentials gained through short courses, which function both as a way of pulling a wider pool of people into the IT workforce, and helping existing digital workers upskill in a fast-evolving industry.
Major employers supporting re/Start include Datacom, Spark and (its current cull of 800 staff notwithstanding) Xero.
Datacom NZ general manager Justin Gray says, “Datacom has made a commitment to be a net creator of tech talent, not just to grow our own team but to ensure we are growing a skilled workforce that can support New Zealand’s growth ambitions. We are also focused on growing a diverse workforce and supporting new, less traditional pathways into tech, including the AWS re/Start programme, to encourage more people to consider career opportunities in technology.”
And Spark’s HR head Heather Polglase says, “We know the huge difference that meaningful partnerships with diverse organisations can make in encouraging more women, Māori, and Pasifika into the industry and are proud to support the AWS re/Start programme, which is helping to create a digital future that more Kiwis can be a part of.”
