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Work and Career Orientations of IT Technicians

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Labour-Market Flexibility and Individual Careers

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Abstract

The ICT (information and communication technologies) sector contrasts with nursing in that it is a fairly young sector characterized by deregulation; diversity; a broad variety of employees’ qualification backgrounds and specializations; less formalized qualification standards; newly emerging organizational structures; and highly dynamic product markets. The product markets in connection with technological innovation are generating demands for high levels of flexibility and job mobility which combine with fast-changing job profiles, skill requirements and work environments.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Even in the highly regulated German system it is estimated that about 800,000 people work as IT specialists without having any related formal qualification.

  2. 2.

    The so-called green card was effective between 2000 and 2004 as a crash programme to cover IT skills shortages in the short term. It allowed highly qualified IT experts from non-European countries to work in Germany for a maximum period of 5 years under certain conditions. Through this initiative about 18,000 IT experts (mainly from India) came to Germany mostly to work in the large metropolitan areas in the south of Germany. By 2008 most of them had returned to their home countries, mainly because they could not obtain a residence permit.

  3. 3.

    The German public sector presents an example where the level of formal qualification may not necessarily determine the allocation of tasks, but is decisive for pay-level structures. This means that a highly skilled IT technician without any formal qualification will earn significantly less than a less-skilled and less-experienced employee with a Master of Science degree, for example.

  4. 4.

    Notably, the establishment of IT-specific formal qualifications only started during the 1990s. Thus, employees who started working in ICT earlier typically had a related, but not ICT-specific professional background.

  5. 5.

    For example, in order to support higher levels of internal functional flexibility of staff more than 100,000 employees from the former German Post retrained to become telecom sales staff or IT technicians.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research, UNICOM-Gebäude, Mary-Somerville-Str. 5, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Dr. Simone R. Kirpal

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Correspondence to Simone R. Kirpal .

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Kirpal, S.R. (2011). Work and Career Orientations of IT Technicians. In: Labour-Market Flexibility and Individual Careers. Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0234-9_4

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