It sounds absolutely mind-boggling, but one of the most interesting news this week comes from Croatia, and it’s all about how “Programmers are now far from the top of the most in-demand professions”. At the very top of the list, the most sought-after professions are salespeople, teachers, cooks, waiters and storekeepers. Developers are in 27th place, far from the top. This is shown by the analysis of the Online Vacancy Index (OVI), which was shared by the Economic Institute Zagreb in cooperation with the “MojPosao” portal.
Developers weren’t at the top of the list last year as well, but they were significantly higher on the list of the most sought-after job profiles. Developers fell from the 11th to 27th place, according to the report, which was published in October. This is the second year in a row that developers are the record holders for the number of places they have lost on the list.
Some of the analysts who worked on the research explain that the report might be based on an anomaly. Companies looking for programmers know that it is difficult to find them, so they have recently been using other channels for finding workers, outside formal advertisements. But on the other hand, there are claims that excessive salaries, unproductiveness and layoffs from the giants are taking their toll. This branch reorients itself to other employment channels before other professions. While experts suspect that this might be the reason for the drastic drop in 16 places, they nevertheless agree that the indicators do in fact suggest that the general demand for developers is declining.
In October, for example, only 150 IT programmers were wanted in Croatia. At the same time, companies were looking to employ 1 000 salespeople and 300 cooks, waiters and storekeepers.
The type of work has changed. I wouldn’t say the sector is in crisis, but the economy has shifted and focused on the lower profile of software development services. Part of the demand is changing due to artificial intelligence itself, which fills the gaps – says Marina Tkalec, an analyst from the Zagreb Economic Institute for Vechernji.hr.
Obviously, artificial intelligence, which is now changing entry positions in the IT sector, plays a crucial role in all this. It will be interesting to see how artificial intelligence will shape the entire sector in the coming years.
