Digital Jersey has released the results of a study of Jersey’s labour market, which shows that embracing technology and growing data and analytics skills will be key to boosting productivity as the economy recovers from the coronavirus.
The Labour Market Insights project, by Digital Jersey, Skills Jersey and Geek Talent, analysed more than 9,000 job vacancies on the island over the past two years to get a detailed understanding of the skills employers are looking for.
Alongside this, the study looked at the CVs of more than 6,000 islanders to see if supply matches demand.
It also explored how much of people’s existing tasks in their jobs could be automated, freeing up workers to do more productive tasks during their working day.
More than 60 industry, education and government representatives were interviewed for the study over 40 sessions. Among other findings, it concluded that businesses lacked the confidence and expertise to adopt and implement technologies.
In addition, a lack of good-quality, affordable housing for newly arrived islanders – in sectors from agriculture and hospitality to financial services and digital – was a barrier to attracting talent to the island.
Digital Jersey CEO Tony Moretta (pictured) said: “We are all rethinking our approaches to so many aspects of our lives, and that’s no different for businesses.
"Through this study, we’ve been able to identify the areas where Digital Jersey and our partners can offer support and guidance, and it’s given us food for thought as we consider new courses that can help close the skills divide in the island."
Key takeaways
• Digital lagger: Jersey’s digital density (adoption of technology) is 10.4% - significantly lower than the figure for London and Edinburgh, where adoption is more than 16%. The goal in Jersey is to increase tech adoption to 20%.
• Digital employment: Digital jobs are pivotal to all sectors of the economy and growing as a share of all recruitment – 44% of advertised digital roles are by digital companies, while financial services represent 29%, and advertising and marketing 7%.
• Jobs automation: Many of the island's highest remunerated jobs are most exposed to the impact of automation – 55% of fund accountants' tasks could be automated, but only 3% of dog walkers.
• Workforce upskilling: Mass reskilling will be needed to support those impacted by technology disruption. Understanding the transferability of skills from one sector to another is vital – domain knowledge in the finance sector is most transferable into digital roles, for example.
• Tech potential: While process automation has been embraced by the banking sector locally, many other sectors significantly lag – the greatest opportunities for digital adoption are in healthcare, education, legal services and hospitality.
To view the full executive summary click here