JAMPRO Jamaica's investment promotion agency says that there were 11,873 persons employed in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector as at March 2002, sixty per cent were women.

Julian Robinson, investment promotions manager at the agency also told JIS News that investment spending on capital equipment and training exceeded $6.8 billion for the 2001/02 fiscal year.

Robinson said a recent study commissioned by the investment and promotions agency indicated that the employment figure represented an increase of 36 per cent from 8,741 in March 2000, with an 18 per cent growth rate per year over the two-year period. A total of 2,369 jobs were added in 2002.

Undertaken by Research & Analysis Associates (RAA), the survey revealed that companies, whose main business was data processing, were the leading sources of new jobs, accounting for 60 of every 100 new jobs added to the sector since March 2001.

Data processing and voice telephony sub-sectors were the leading source of jobs, employing 2,913 and 4,031 respectively, the agency said. Women held six in every 10 jobs in the sector.

Of the $6.8 billion spent on capital equipment and training during the last financial year over $6.7 billion was spent on capital equipment, while another $100 million was spent on training.

Jampro said that most of the spending on capital equipment and training was done by a small number of companies. Only 50 per cent of the total number of companies reported that they had not done any spending on training, and a maximum spending of only $50,000 on capital equipment.

The survey indicated that the voice telephony and data processing sub sectors accounted for $900 million of every $1 billion spent by the entire ICT sector on capital equipment and training. Some 50 per cent of the executives who responded to the Jampro survey, held the view that there was a shortage of ICT skills in Jamaica.

Some 45 per cent of the respondents said they had plans in the ensuing 12 months to add new workers while those with plans to invest in business expansion, was 48 per cent.

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