The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world of adult learning upside down. Its impact on the economy has everybody talking about reskilling to technology and digital jobs. Exciting terms and buzzwords are thrown around left and right. But sometimes these words get confused and are used incorrectly, which causes confusion in the discussion.

Tech Skills Gap or Tech Skills Shortage?

Take, for example, terminology such as the “tech skills gap” and “tech skills shortage.” These terms describe two similar yet distinct challenges that the global industry is facing. Many people mistakenly use them interchangeably. Let’s get these terms straight.

The tech skills shortage describes a pressing manpower issue faced by the entire tech industry. It is used to describe the global shortage in qualified personnel for tech positions. This shortage is felt in nearly every profession in the tech world.

According to a recent CIO survey conducted by KPMG, the technology skills shortage is greater than it’s been since 2008. The lack of specific skills in areas deemed critical to future growth—like data analysts, AI experts, and cybersecurity specialists—is acute. According to recent reports, the global shortage in cybersecurity specialists surpassed 4 million last year, up from 2.93 million a short year before. The tech skills shortage is constantly increasing—not enough people join the tech labor market every year, while industry demand is constantly growing.

The tech skills gap is an entirely different issue altogether. This terminology describes the difference between individuals’ existing skill set and the skills that the industry needs them to have to effectively perform their job roles. Gaps exist among many fresh graduates whose alma maters didn’t give them the practical skills they need for tech jobs as well as among experienced professionals who didn’t learn the latest programming languages.

For example, veteran IT professionals who have been programming in languages in decline, such as Objective-C or R, may have a significant tech skills gap and need to upskill to program in languages sought by the industry, such as Python or TypeScript. University graduates may also be missing critical soft skills that aren’t part of the computer science curriculum, like agile teamwork and communication, which are also considered part of the skills gap.

Forward-thinking companies that understand the value of retaining their workforce are already tackling this issue. Companies like Infosys, Wipro, and Accenture are investing in reskilling and upskilling their workforce, devoting significant resources to ensure that their employees have the skills that the companies need to succeed. Infosys has increased its reskilling efforts by 150 percent during the last year, focusing on training in the fields of cloud technology, AI, machine learning, data analytics, IoT, user experience, and digital networking.

Bridging the Gap and Fixing the Shortage

Upskilling and reskilling are pedagogical approaches to solving the tech skills gap and the tech skills shortage.

Upskilling is focused on upgrading the skill sets of individuals who already have tech skills to those newer tech or soft skills that are in high demand. For example, a mainframe specialist would be trained in cloud computing, or an IT specialist would become a cyber analyst at an NOC. As the individual already has formidable tech skills, retraining them would require less of an effort than training someone with no tech experience.

Upskilling also has the added benefit of retaining experienced employees and their knowledge within the organization instead of hiring new ones, which is a difficult and costly effort given the skills shortage. Another example may be upskilling a talented software engineer about to get promoted to team leader to learn soft skills like empathy, leadership, and feedback.

As tech upskilling focuses on individuals who are already in the tech domain, it doesn’t really solve the tech skills shortage in a big way. It may decrease some vacancies but may also create vacancies filled by the upskilled professionals leaving their current job.

Reskilling is an entirely different matter. This discipline is about taking individuals who work in a different, nontechnological domain and giving them the knowledge and skills needed to enter the tech world and land their first tech job. An example of reskilling would be a tour guide who saw the travel industry hurt and decided to become an entry-level data analyst.

As the COVID-19 pandemic’s disastrous effects on the economy have put entire sectors out of business, reskilling is increasingly considered a high-impact method of restarting people’s careers and making a living once again. Each reskilled individual, once employed, reduces the tech skills shortage by one. Governments and enterprises need to launch initiatives that enable the reskilling of millions.

Want to Learn More?

Join me at ATD TechKnowledge 2021 for the session, Can Vocational Training and Reskilling Fill the High-Tech Skills Shortage? Israel as a Case Study. We will explore how reskilling, training, and adult education providers can address the problem and try to narrow the gap.

Editor’s note: This post originally published on the Wawiwa Tech Training blog.