Skills shortage 'to cost business £232bn'

The IT skills shortage in Western Europe could cost businesses as much as £232bn, according to research released during the Summit on Technology, Innovation and Skills Training in Brussels this week.

The report - conducted by research house Datamonitor - said the problem lies mainly with SMEs, which can no longer afford to pay IT professionals as demand rises. As a result, they're faced with reducing their IT function, resulting in billions of pounds of lost productivity.

The Brussels summit was attended by entrepreneurs and industry suppliers, including BT, IBM and Siemens, which aim to put together a "call for action" for presentation to the European Council in Lisbon at the end of this month.

Datamonitor's research was backed-up by reports from Microsoft and J@M Associates, which agreed that government, industry and educators all have a role in solving the problem.

Suggested solutions include providing tax breaks for companies that train employees in IT, developing partnerships between public and private sectors, and broadening the labour pool by targeting non-IT experts and older people.

It was also suggested that military expertise could be transferred to civilian projects, enabling the speedy development of a more efficient Internet backbone.

The Lisbon summit - to be held from 23 to 24 March - will focus on boosting entrepreneurship in Europe and addressing pan-European IT targets within the education and social sectors.

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'UK Chancellor sets out e-government roadmap for SMEs' (http://www