New wave of courses tries to meet the increased demand for IT professionals

The technology sector should create 797,000 new jobs in Brazil by 2025, according to projections by Brasscom (Association of Information and Communication Technology and Digital Technologies Companies). The entity estimates, however, that there will be a lack of professionals to fill 532 thousand of these vacancies.

The numbers reinforce the bottleneck of the deficit of IT professionals in the country, worsened by the digital acceleration boosted during the pandemic.

Until August, the country almost doubled the number of professionals whose hiring was expected by the end of 2021. The high number of hirings during the health crisis made the organization update its projections until 2025.

About 53,000 students graduated from higher education in courses in the area in 2019, according to the most recent data from Inep. If the number remains stable in the coming years, Brasscom estimates that the supply of professionals should remain below what is necessary.

In 2025, for example, the approximately 50,000 graduates in the field each year in the country will be less than a quarter of what is needed to fill the 206,940,000 jobs projected for that year.

To try to meet the demand in the area, traditional institutions have invested in new courses aimed at the sector.

At Insper (Institute of Education and Research), which has consolidated itself by offering courses in the area of ​​administration and business, the computer engineering course has been offered since 2015.

The college is now launching a computer science course, aimed at meeting the specific demand for developers in the country, with an innovative didactic proposal.

The new degree is aimed at solving real problems for people and corporations. In the first semester, 80% of the workload is dedicated to the creation, as a team, of software that helps customers with daily problems.

Throughout the course, students will simulate the work process of professional developers, with short project cycles in which they will learn to write code, apply problem solving methodologies and lead teams. At the end of college, students will carry out innovation projects in partnership with large companies in the sector, focused on areas such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

In addition to specific courses for the area, the faculty seeks to encourage the development of technological skills in students from other careers as well.

“All Insper undergraduate students now have to learn to program, even those taking courses such as Law”, says Marcos Lisboa, president of Insper.

ESPM (Superior School of Advertising and Marketing), recognized for its communication and marketing courses, also inaugurated in 2018 a campus focused on technology and started offering the Information Systems course.

The course receives maximum marks at MEC and Enade and, in addition to technical training, offers classes in networking, socio-emotional skills and learning tools.

In January, the institution will offer on-site and online vacation courses focused on the technology area, such as Big Data for international relations analysis, Introduction to Instagram augmented reality filters and Digital Accessibility Management.

Known for its workforce training for the industry, Senai now offers courses such as systems analysis and development and cyber security. To ensure that the training offered does not quickly become obsolete, as is common in the area, they have partnered with technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco and Huawei.

In September, the Senai Technology Faculty in São Paulo launched a new higher course in Systems Analysis and Development, available from 2022 onwards.

The course is aimed at training versatile developers who combine information technology with industrial automation and can work in industry 4.0 posts. According to the college, it is the only one in the country to offer the combination.

The Federal Institutes, focused on professional training, also included in their Institutional Development Plan for the 2019-2023 period the creation of a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems in all 38 campuses across the country.

In March, the Votuporanga (SP) campus began offering its own, with four years of duration and disciplines that innovate by enabling students to undertake in the area. Teaching is hybrid, with 85% of the workload in person and the rest at a distance.

But technology courses still suffer from low demand, few enrollments and high dropout rates, according to the Brasscom document released on Wednesday (1). There are about 2.4 candidates per vacancy offered in courses that train for Information and Communication Technologies. Among candidates, only 24.85% are admitted.

The association also warns that about 39% of students in the area in the private network drop out of the course. The same happens with 26.6% of those enrolled in the public network. For Brasscom, the comparison of rates shows that there is a bias of economic insufficiency responsible for the dropout and low supply of professionals in the area.

Therefore, he argues that the increase in the supply of professionals for the area requires improvements in the curricula of related courses, which can give rise to future professionals in technology, such as mathematics, engineering and science.

The need to train professionals for a world where skills such as programming will be required in different areas now joins the imperative to ensure that professionals from other areas can migrate to technology positions in the future.

Requalification is the watchword among specialists in this market, who see the format as a way to supply the low supply of technology professionals by traditional colleges.

“We have to prepare young people, but our biggest challenge is to retrain adults from 30 years of age onwards so that they can work in the technology area” says Gustavo Leal, Senai’s operations director.

The engineer points out that the shortage of professionals for the area is not restricted to Brazil, but a global phenomenon that spread with the speed with which new technologies were adopted. “It is a demand all over the world. Countries will be as successful in the knowledge economy as they are able to respond to the challenges of training and requalification.”

Attracted to the area by the greater offer of vacancies and an average salary that exceeds twice the national average (R$1,971), economist Eduardo Dias, 30, migrated in 2020 to the technology area.

He enrolled in the Technology in Analysis and Systems Development course at the IFSP (Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of São Paulo) and, in the first year of the course, started receiving paid training in app development from a large company of the area.

“Before, it was common for me to send several resumes a day and not have many returns. Now, companies and recruiters call me and come to me”, he says.

Eduardo chose a second degree and the more traditional path to migrate to technology, but there are others – even shorter ones.

Initiatives aimed at enabling students and workers from other areas to work in the sector include training programs offered by companies, such as the Apple Academy, and online courses from platforms such as Alura.

Social movements such as the MTST (Movement of Homeless Workers) have also created technology centers that offer training courses in the area in peripheral regions.

Revelo, a technology-oriented recruitment platform created in 2014, created a program aimed at short-term training of professionals in partnership with 42 technology education startups.

The company finances the training of a new professional for each person hired by the platform, which offers vacancies in companies such as Natura and Ambev. “We understand that recruitment is important in the short term, but training is essential”, says Lucas Mendes, one of the company’s founders.

According to Revelo, the demand for professionals in the field on the platform grew 670% in 2020, compared to 2019. Between January and October 2021, the increase was 480%, compared to the same period of the first year of the pandemic.

The most sought after professionals are those who develop websites (called web dev) and full stack developers, who can contribute at all stages of a new app project.

Companies are looking for professionals with technical capacity and some experience. And, in the area, remote work had high adherence among professionals and is here to stay. “We warn companies that if they insist on taking them back to the office, they will lose teams,” says Lucas.

Where to find new courses

Degree in Computer Science, focusing on projects and problem solving

• Where: Insper (R. Quatá, 300, Vila Olímpia, São Paulo)
• Duration: 8 semesters
• Monthly fee: BRL 5,240.00

Bachelor of Information Systems

• Where: ESPM (R. Joaquim Távora, 1240 – Vila Mariana – São Paulo)
• Duration: 8 semesters
• Monthly fee: BRL 4,121.00

Degree in Systems Analysis and Development, with integration between IT and automation areas

• Where: Senai Technology Faculty-SP Armando de Arruda Pereira (r. Santo André, 680, Boa Vista, São Caetano do Sul)
• Duration: 4 semesters
• Monthly fee: BRL 881.68

Bachelor of Information Systems

• Where: Federal Institutes (various locations)
• Duration: 8 semesters
• Tuition fee: Free (ticket via SISU)

Professions with the most vacancies in technology

• Full stack developer (who take care of both the interface and the app code)
• Website developer for the web
• Back-end developer (create and manage the area that stores the app or software data)
• Front-end developer (they take care of design and user experience)
• Computer Technician
• Systems analyst
• Support analyst
• test analyst
• Infrastructure analyst
• Project Manager
• Designer
• Business Intelligence Analyst
• IT manager

Source: Banco Nacional de Empregos, Insper and Revelo