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The following article annoys me a little...

Nothing in the government's recent changes to the points system for
admission of "skilled migrants" to New Zealand looks likely to benefit a
crippling shortage of ICT staff and a fundamental change of attitude is
needed, says ITANZ chief Jim O'Neill.

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/...256F57000933EC

They indicate a shorage of skilled staff, and want to import temporary
labour to fix this. I assume they are talking about programmers in the main.
tr

But, I have noticed, that NZ companies seem reluctant to provide training to
locals. How many programming jobs say "Training provided"? I would have
thought there are plenty of local people around, but companies are too tight
to train them, or don't want to take the risk the person is untrainable.

I think it would be wrong to simply import skills as then you do not develop
local talent. If these business put up the money to upskill their staff, or
hire new people on the basis they will be given extra aining then there
would not be this problem. There are a lot of prior mainframe programmers
out there - why not train these guys in the new technologies?

I wonder, how many programmers are out there that have trouble finding a
job? Or , find that the rates are so low you do not bother?

In article <Tktpd.11609$> in nz.comp on Fri, 26
Nov 2004 11:50:37 +1300, JedMeister <>
says...
> The following article annoys me a little...
>
> Nothing in the government's recent changes to the points system for
> admission of "skilled migrants" to New Zealand looks likely to benefit a
> crippling shortage of ICT staff and a fundamental change of attitude is
> needed, says ITANZ chief Jim O'Neill.
>
> http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/...256F57000933EC
>
> They indicate a shorage of skilled staff, and want to import temporary
> labour to fix this. I assume they are talking about programmers in the main.
> tr
>
> But, I have noticed, that NZ companies seem reluctant to provide training to
> locals. How many programming jobs say "Training provided"? I would have
> thought there are plenty of local people around, but companies are too tight
> to train them, or don't want to take the risk the person is untrainable.
>
> I think it would be wrong to simply import skills as then you do not develop
> local talent. If these business put up the money to upskill their staff, or
> hire new people on the basis they will be given extra aining then there
> would not be this problem. There are a lot of prior mainframe programmers
> out there - why not train these guys in the new technologies?

There are labour cycles in the IT industry just as there are in other
industries.

A few years ago Jade Corporation set up joint venture training programmes
in all the major tertiary institutions. Last year it was Jade who had to
lay off staff.

Given the time that it takes to train, say, programmers, an activity
which is well served by tertiary institutions, allowing people to
emigrate could be seen as a short term bridge until there are enough
again being trained by the tertiary institutions.