Brazil’s information technology and communications (ICT) sector has seen unprecedented growth in job creation in the first three months of 2021 despite the local talent gap, according to a new report.
Some 52.743 professionals were hired in the first quarter of 2021, a threefold increase in relation to the same period in 2020, when companies from the sector created 17.067 jobs, according to data from the Brazilian Association of Information Technology, Communication and Digital Technologies Companies (Brasscom).
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The amount of tech jobs created in Brazil between January and March is getting closer to the total number of new vacancies in the sector in 2020, when 59.153 jobs were created in the ICT segment.
According to Brasscom, the total ICT workforce in Brazil at the end of 2020, of about 1.6 million professionals has seen an increase of 3.3% when compared to the number in March 2021. The association noted the figures for the first quarter are particularly significant when compared to Brazil’s overall growth in new vacancies across other industries, which has reached 1.8% during that period.
Citing numbers from its sector analysis for 2020, Brasscom also pointed out that despite the creation of more than 50,000 jobs in the ICT sector in Brazil last year, companies are still struggling with a severe talent deficit. The document estimates that in order to meet the sector’s needs, an average of 70,000 professionals would need to be hired every year between 2019 and 2024.
This pent-up demand is a result of the lack of qualified professionals, Brasscom argued, despite the fact that salaries in the sector are high for Brazilian standards: while the national average monthly salary is 1.945 reais ($384), the average pay in the ICT sector is 4.792 reais ($946). According to the association, for roles focused on high value services and software, the average salary it is almost three times greater than the national average, reaching 5.628 ($1.111) .
