Japan races to hire 270,000 artificial intelligence engineers
TOKYO -- Already behind other countries in nurturing the IT professionals indispensable to a digital transformation, Japan in 2030 is expected to have 270,000 artificial intelligence and Internet of Things jobs that it will be unable to fill.
With few graduates holding STEM degrees -- those in science, technology, engineering and mathematics -- Japan sees gloom in its future and the need to invest more in human resources.
"We cannot develop a system to forecast demand for products, though we need it," lamented a food-maker executive in charge of digital transformation. Although the company has increased its IT staff by 1.6 times, it has yet to nurture hires familiar with cutting-edge technologies.
Japan has a considerable number of IT workers. The information and communication industry had 1.22 million engineers in 2020, according to a survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. That is the fourth-most in the world. Information collectors like the International Labor Organization put the number of these workers in the U.S. at 4.09 million, those in India at 2.32 million and those in China at 2.27 million.
But specific IT skills are what matters. Conventional IT workers, those who develop websites and apps, in 2018 accounted for 90% of all IT workers in Japan. Cutting-edge IT workers, those who specialize in artificial intelligence and the smart devices that connect to what is known as the Internet of Things, made up 10%, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/Japan-races-to-hire-270-000-artificial-intelligence-engineers
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