The labor demand for the industry Information Technology (IT) shot at Uruguaymoving away from the general behavior of job offers, which fell by almost 6% in the first four months of the year compared to 2022.
Latest Labor Monitor consultant’s monthly advice highlighted a considerable increase for specialists in Artificial intelligence and Data Science. The study considers the fall in general labor demand to be expected after the strong post-pandemic by Covid-19.
At the same time, the report focuses on the increase in offers for employees specialized in Information Technology (IT) that went from 9 to 16% in the last four years, that is, since the pre-pandemic.
Advice believes that the arrival of the GPT-chat and other Artificial Intelligence platforms are generating a true revolution in the way institutions and companies work, and the labor demand in Uruguay reflects this.
According to the monitor, between 2019 and 2023 in the ICT sector, the area of Data Science and Analysis went from fifth to second position in demandafter the area of Programming and Software Engineering.
Vacancies difficult to fill despite leadership in the region
Advice’s previous job monitor, published in April, noted that IT positions are the most difficult to fill, specifically Programmer, Software Engineer, Systems Engineer and Database Administrator. Also appearing, a few positions below, are Infrastructure Technician and Executive Chef.
According to the consultant, in highly qualified jobs that are difficult to fill (mainly technological) there are few suitable workers who are unemployed, so that competition is intense, global and that is why it is difficult to fill the positions.
The Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technologies (CUTI) estimated 3,000 positions to be filled due to the shortage of national labor in the sector.
However, Uruguay leads the ranking in the region in the number of people with IT skills, knowledge of artificial intelligence and languages, according to a report by the CUTI IT Observatory and Microsoft.
The country has 21,846 people within its borders who have at least one skill in the area of Information Technology, 16% more than in 2021; in fact, 64 out of every 10,000 inhabitants have these skills. This makes it regional leader in technology expertsalthough it still has a long way to go to reach USAwhere 187 of every 10,000 inhabitants have IT knowledge.
Source: Ambito
