Firms still ignore skills ebb

The IT industry is failing to help users cope with the skills crisis.

As a result, current shortages will not be overcome before the EMU and year 2000 problems need to be resolved.

This was the view taken by Gartner Group analysts, who spoke to a panel of high-level executives from software and services companies at the Group's symposium in Cannes. The executives were quizzed on their contributions to solving the skill shortage epidemic.

Nick Jones, research director at Gartner, said: 'By any measure, we do not have enough people to handle the year 2000 problem in Europe.'

Oracle executive vice president Pier Carlo Falotti echoed his views.

'Nobody has enough consultants. I do not know of any company that has consultants waiting for the jobs to come,' he said.

Paul Baan, co-founder of Baan Software, pointed out that companies have tried to increase the efficiency and productivity of existing people to fill the gap.

Manny Fernandez, chief executive officer of Gartner, said Cobol programmers were now on double the salaries of two years ago, and the situation would get worse. 'Organisations should anticipate significant wage increases in the next two years. They will have to put their money where their code is,' he said.

SAP executive board member Henning Kagermann believes that many private sector enterprises will end up implementing 'quick and dirty' systems out of desperation.