The province of B.C. and the high-tech sector are teaming up to develop a strategy that will deliver workers to an industry facing a shortage of trained talent.
At any given time, there are about 2,000 high-tech vacancies in the province, B.C. Minister of Technology Amrik Virk said at a Tuesday announcement in Victoria. That’s why B.C. is spending $600,000 on a study that will present recommendations on how to meet the demand.
Openings include 75 jobs posted on the Victoria Innovation, Advanced Technology and Entrepreneurship Council’s job board. Several seek web developers.
Victoria’s Foundry Spatial, an environmental consulting company, is looking for a web-application developer. The posting went out Monday and by the next day four applications had been submitted — from Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, and Minneapolis, founder and chief executive Ben Kerr said.
He would like to see more applied-computing training in university programs such as geography, and earth and ocean sciences.
“The problems we are seeing in the world are not getting easier. They are getting harder and technology is probably a big component of the answer,” Kerr said.
“Everything is so specialized that it is very rare that people have the exact skill set that we are looking for,” he said. “We are innovating all the time. Our technology basically evolves every six months.”
The capital region’s tech sector consists of more than 880 companies. The technology council pegs its annual economic impact at $4 billion. Provincewide, there are 9,734 tech companies and their needs are diverse, Virk said.
Despite efforts to attract workers to this sector, there might not be enough qualified people in B.C. to fill specific positions. Some jobs might need to be filled by immigrants, he said.
Virk urged parents to promote tech careers to their daughters.
The tech sector is expected to continue expanding, Minister of Jobs and Skills Training Shirley Bond said.
Many tech jobs provide wages that are 60 per cent higher than the industrial average, she said.
The study is expected to be complete by late 2017, Bond said. It is being led by the B.C. Technology Association and the Vancouver Economic Commission, and will examine what the needs are and how to address them.
The province had earlier announced a $100-million B.C. Tech Fund to boost access to capital, foster market growth and provide more training.
“We see the technology sector as a key economic driver,” Bond said, adding that provincewide, it employs more than 86,000 workers.
