Gordon Young's Leader: The employment bomb that could derail the digital industries
Here is Gordon Young's draft leader for the next edition of The Drum. Disagree, got comments? Make them now if you want to influence the piece we'll put in the magazine.
Jobs is front of mind in the digital industries at the moment. But not for the reason you might think. Rather than cutting salaries and reducing headcounts the big challenge facing agencies is that they cannot find the right number of the right people.
The Drum has run several stories on its websites that has brought the issue into sharp relief recently.
At a Marketing Industry Network meeting in Manchester – kindly hosted by Photolink – Nick Rhind of Manchester digital firm – CTI, told the assembled audience that attracting people with the right skills is the thing that really keeps him awake at night.
And he also argued that with the BBC shortly coming to town, competition for skilled individuals will grow even more intense for independent agencies.
Meanwhile Vision and Media got a slating for a campaign called Resign London, which was designed to persuade skilled individuals in the Capital to make the move up North. Whatever, you think of the creative there is no doubt that the drive was motivated by the same concern.
Despite the recession it is still tough to find the right people for certain jobs. And that, as opposed to declining client budgets is seen by many as the biggest threat to growth in the sector.
One side affect of this trend is wage inflation. And a study funded by Propel, a recruitment business, confirmed that salary growth in the digital sector remained positive in 2010.
A lot of the tension is a function of the speed of change in marketing. Once geeks and programmers were wore cheap suits and worked in IT departments.
Today there are as trendy as anyone and work in the heart of the marketing industry. For the first time in generations mathematics and engineering is cool. Terms such as 'algorithms' are common place in brand-management meetings. The geeks really have inherited the earth.
But because so many students have been seduced by soft media, cultural and social study type courses there are just not enough skilled people coming through to meet this growing demand.
It is an issue that is too big for independent companies to deal with alone. It is something society as a whole needs to address and any solution will have to include rapidly re-aligning the sort of things kids are taught in the nation's primary and secondary schools.