Panel SA: Transition sees blackout in industry and wants high-tech professions recognized by MEC

The Industry transition team presented the Education group with a bomb that will explode in the next five years: lack of skilled labor for highly complex tasks.

Coordinated by former Minister Mauro Borges, the members of the group responsible for Development, Industry and Commerce want a government plan so that new professions are included in the Ministry’s curriculum, a way to allow the industry of the future —called 4.0— have a qualified workforce.

The next step will be to discuss the topic with the Education core.

The diagnosis was presented in one of the conversations. In five years, there will be almost 800,000 vacancies for technology professionals and no technical school or university currently has training courses in these areas.

Another problem is that the few qualified professionals in the country are becoming the target of hiring by global giants. In the defense industry alone, there were 200 aeronautical engineers hired by global giants in the last two years — in a universe of just over 1,600.

Projections by Brasscom (Brazilian Association of Information and Communication Technology Companies) indicate that, by 2025, the segment of emerging technologies —pillars of the transformation of the productive sector– will be the second largest generator of vacancies per year in the technology sector.

There will be 797,000 jobs, 563,000 of which in the technology sector alone —to which the education system still does not pay due attention.

In this universe, the job of big data analyst alone will account for 26% of the job offer (147,000 jobs). There will also be openings for specialists in cloud computing (16.8% of the total) and in mobile internet technologies (16.4%).

In the emerging technologies segment —which includes artificial intelligence, internet of things, blockchain and information security, there will be 214,800 jobs.

There is yet another branch, more restricted, focused on social networks, virtual reality, robotics, among other activities.

The difficulty is already reflected in the lives of companies, which do not find this type of professional. A first-of-its-kind study by the Harvard Business Review, done for NTT Data, shows that 73% of executives surveyed said talent shortages and skills deficits are holding back the use of emerging technologies.

This branch of technology involves items such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, 5G, biometrics, edge computing, advanced robotics, augmented reality, among others.

These technologies brought productivity gains according to the interviewees. At least 50% of executives indicated increased employee productivity and reduced labor costs, 46% gained more manufacturing and production efficiency, 40% improved decision-making, brand reputation and increased company revenue.

Julio Wiziack (interim) with Paulo Ricardo Martins and Diego Felix