(From AllAfrica.com) Johannesburg - THE shortage of South Africans with information technology (IT) skills is so acute it is making some South African businesses worried that they will be unable to survive, researchers say.

Last year 75% of the 157 businesses surveyed by online newspaper ITWeb and the University of the Witwatersrand's Joburg Centre for Software Engineering said the IT skills shortage was either having a major impact on their business or was affecting their viability, and in 2008 all 115 of the South African companies surveyed made this claim. With SA emerging from recession, it is arguable that this year the number making this claim could once again increase. (The 2010 survey is under way).

Despite the expansion in SA's telecommunications industry, and the way in which technological change has increased global demand for high-end IT skills because the various separate technologies such as voice, data and video are converging in new technologies, the numbers graduating in SA with high-end IT skills is not increasing significantly, says Sandra Burmeister, CEO of recruitment specialists Landelahni Business Leaders.