Female potential, a valuable resource in the digital age
The digital revolution and the advance towards technologies such as artificial intelligence and automation have caused a greater demand for professionals in the IT industry that the market has not been able to supply.
In this scenario, female talent is a valuable resource that can respond to the new digital needs of companies. However, according to an IDB study del BID, women study fewer careers related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, as a consequence, female participation in the technology sector, one of the sectors with the highest salary returns, is particularly low. They barely make up 42% of the people employed in the digital labor market.
The World Bank highlights that Latin America must work on four major areas to incorporate women as part of the solution:
- Education: Strengthen curricula in STEM areas and promote more hands-on experiences.
- Recruitment: Remove obstacles to hiring women and promote inclusive policies.
- Retain talent: Close salary gaps, encourage flexible hours, and promote childcare services.
- Recognition: Facilitate access to professional networks and make visible mentoring and sponsorship programs for women.
The World Bank highlights that female talent in programming, engineering, or mathematics is the answer to the high demand for technology positions, which will benefit not only data centers or IT companies, but also the productivity of economies of the countries of Latin America.
Why are women the solution to the high demand for IT talent in Latin America?
Incorporating women into IT positions may be the solution to fulfill the high demand for talent that the technology industry demands. Page Group data reveals that there is currently a deficit of 48% of professionals in Latin America. Therefore, we believe that inserting women will help solve the talent crisis and, at the same time, generate a positive impact on diversity and labor inclusion.
Vertiv watch: A day in the life of a woman in technology
At Vertiv we want to share a day in the life of women who work in the technology industry and how they complement their passion for technology and their analytical skills, with their roles as daughters, mothers, wives, or sisters.
Data Insider: The opportunities that the IT market has for women
The current market has encouraged information technology professionals to play a vital role in the growth of modern society. Therefore, every day more job profiles are looking for specialists in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), which represents an opportunity for people to become professionals in areas related to innovation and digitization.
These are the statistics you need to know about Latin America and the global IT market:
- According to Unesco, by 2050, up to 75% of all jobs will correspond to STEM disciplines [1]
- By 2025, there will be an estimated global demand of 2.3 million professionals in Data Centers, which represents a growth of more than 230 jobs in tasks ranging from the design to the operation of data centers [2]
- The job profiles in demand in data centers are: Business Support, Strategy, Design, Construction, Operations Engineering, IT Hardware, Networking, Connectivity, Controls, and Monitoring; and Operations [3]
- In 2020, more than 50% of data center owners or operators worldwide faced difficulties finding qualified candidates for open positions [4]
- In Latin America, the need for professionals in data centers will be 21,000 technicians in 2025, and markets such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico will face the highest demand for them [5]
- By the end of 2022, Latin America registered a deficit of 48% in labor with knowledge in information and communication technologies (ICTs) [6]
Female participation in the industry:
- Globally, only 27% of data and analytics professionals are women [7]
- As of early 2022, 729,000 data and analytics employees were women, and this is expected to rise to 1.35 million by the end of the year [8]
- In Latin America and the Caribbean, 46% are researchers, exceeding the world rate of 33% [9]
- In 2018, the World Economic Forum indicated that women represented 25% of professionals in artificial intelligence worldwide. In 2021 that did not change [10]
- In 51.5% of the organizations that promoted digital transformation processes in Latin America, the active participation of women was less than 50%, due to a lack of necessary digital skills and competencies [11]
- Women in Latin America get one STEM job for every twenty vacancies, while men get one STEM job for every four vacancies [12]
- Only 30% of women in Latin America go to school in STEM-related fields [13]
References:
[2] [3] [4] [5] Uptime Institute, [6] Page Group, [7] [8] Data Center Dynamics, [9] Open Forum of Sciences of Latin America and the Caribbean,[10] CEPAL, [11] BID LAB, [1] [12] [13] (UN Women)
STEM Women Videos - Channel and End User
