Global High Tech Industry Alliance Releases IT Skills “Inventory”

Arlington, VA - The World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) today released a preliminary IT skills “inventory” of existing studies, reports, surveys and initiatives conducted in 21 countries and regions, including the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Africa.

The WITSA inventory provides an overview of the critical issues regarding IT skills and IT workforce shortages across the world. The WITSA inventory demonstrates the challenges facing the global IT industry and various solutions being proposed to deal with these challenges.

“The Internet and information technology (IT) have become powerful forces for the digital economy in countries across the world,” said WITSA Public Policy Chairman and Fujitsu Limited executive David A. Olive. “The demand for IT skills is large and growing, and the current undertaking reflects WITSA’s belief that workforce-related barriers constitute a growing predicament to the future development of IT and the high-tech industry,” Olive continued. “We believe that these findings will provide a useful tool to establish best practices, recommendations and other remedies to the barriers caused by the growing skills gap,” noted Olive. The inventory will be a “living document”, and will be regularly updated. A copy is available at the WITSA web site at http://www.witsa.org/.

The World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) is a consortium of 41 information technology (IT) industry associations from economies around the world. As the global voice of the IT industry, WITSA is dedicated to advocating policies that advance the industry's growth and development; facilitating international trade and investment in IT products and services; strengthening WITSA's national industry associations through the sharing of knowledge, experience, and critical information; providing members with a vast network of contacts in nearly every geographic region of the world; and hosting the biennial World Congress on Information Technology, the premier industry sponsored global IT event, and the biennial Global Public Policy Summit. Founded in 1978 and originally known as the World Computing Services Industry Association, WITSA has increasingly assumed an active advocacy role in international public policy issues affecting the creation of a robust global information infrastructure. For additional information about WITSA and its activities, go to http://www.witsa.org/.