Big Tech is hacking the U.S. skills shortage

NORTHPORT, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, November 11, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Over an eight-year period tracked by Cybersecurity Ventures, the number of unfilled cybersecurity jobs grew by 350 percent, from one million positions in 2013 to 3.5 million in 2021. For the first time in a decade, the cybersecurity skills gap is leveling off. Looking five years ahead, we predict the same number of openings in 2025. READ THE CYBERSECURITY JOBS REPORT

Despite industry-wide efforts to reduce the skills gap, the world’s open cybersecurity positions in 2021 is enough to fill 50 NFL stadiums.

In the U.S. the cybersecurity workforce has more than 950,000 workers — with around 465,000 of them yet to be filled, according to CyberSeek, a project supported by the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), a program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The U.S. job market reflects a global supply and demand problem around recruiting candidates with cybersecurity certifications.

Nationwide, there are just over 90,000 CISSPs (Certified Information Systems Security Professionals), according to CyberSeek, but more than 106,000 job openings require the CISSP certification, our industry’s gold standard. Or consider CISMs (Certified Information Security Managers), with just 17,000 people holding the credentials but nearly 40,000 advertised jobs requesting them.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects “information security analyst” will be the 10th fastest growing occupation over the next decade, with an employment growth rate of 31 percent compared to the 4 percent average growth rate for all occupations. A majority of these (entry to mid-level) positions do not require certifications and allow employers to cast a wider net for candidates.

The Hindu Business Line cites a report from Michael Page, a global recruiting consultancy, which states that India alone is expected to have more than 1.5 million job vacancies in cybersecurity by 2025.

As the numbers trend up in India, the world’s second largest country with a population of nearly 1.4 billion and a hub of talent for global IT outsourcing, the cybersecurity worker shortage in the U.S. is expected to gradually decrease, beginning in 2022.

The cybersecurity worker shortage isn’t going away anytime soon — but there is finally light at the end of the tunnel.

Big Tech is hacking the skills shortage in the U.S.

Microsoft recently launched a national campaign with U.S. community colleges to help place 250,000 people into the cybersecurity workforce by 2025, representing half of the country’s labor shortage.

Google is running a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal that says they’re training 100,000 Americans for vital jobs in data privacy and security. A couple of months ago, the company stated in a blog post that this pledge is being made through the Google Career Certificate program.

A Fact Sheet published by The White House announced that IBM will train 150,000 people in cybersecurity skills over the next three years, and they will partner with more than 20 historically black colleges and universities to establish cybersecurity leadership centers to grow a more diverse cyber workforce.
Training providers, and other smaller firms, are partnering with Big Tech and the U.S. government, in the war against cybercrime.

Code.org joined Microsoft, Google, IBM, Apple, and Amazon at the White House recently and committed to teaching cybersecurity concepts to three million students. This includes two million K-12 students across 35,000 classrooms over the next three years, and the launch of a new instructional cybersecurity video series with a goal of reaching one million students of all ages. 45 percent of Code.org students are young women, and 49 percent are from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.

There are more than 12 million tech workers in the U.S., and around 75 million tech workers globally. Whether it is by design or out of sheer necessity, these workers will (unofficially) continue to soak up the cybersecurity responsibilities designated for the positions that employers are grappling to fill.

Women represent 25 percent of the global cybersecurity workforce in 2021, according to Cybersecurity Ventures, up from 20 percent in 2019, and around 10 percent in 2011. We expect a steady uptick in the number of women filling cybersecurity jobs over the next decade — which will shrink the skills gap even further.

Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that women will represent 30 percent of the global cybersecurity workforce by 2025, and that will reach 35 percent by 2031.

Cybercrime, which is predicted to cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, up from $6 trillion in 2021, will continue generating a number of new jobs roughly equal to those being filled over the next 5 years.

Cybersecurity Ventures’ prediction around unfilled jobs has been corroborated by hundreds of media outlets, including the world’s largest, as well as universities, governments, vendors, recruitment firms, and security experts, since we first published the figure five years ago. Our next annual Cybersecurity Jobs Report will be published in Q4 2022.

Malcomb Farber
Cybersecurity Ventures
info@cybersecurityventures.com
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