With the country halted due to the pandemic, technology companies launched a search for workers in confinement: in the case of Catalonia, between March and May, 6,700 job offers for digital workers were published. According to Joan Ramon Barrera, president of the Cercle Tecnologic de Catalunya (CTecno), although this figure is 45% lower than last year, "technology is the sector that has created the most jobs in the pandemic". Other sectors that have contracted (such as business management and finance), however, have fallen by 65%.

The demand for cloud web development and software professionals has been particularly high in the pandemic, due to the needs of companies that have suddenly had to implement telecare, with the inability to sign foreign professionals being the main reason for stopping hiring.

According to the "Digital Talent Overview 2020" report prepared by the Barcelona Digital Talent Association, the growth in demand for technological workers is structural: employment of technology professionals in Europe has grown by 41.3% over the last decade, compared to a 3.4% increase in employment in the economy.

Catalonia

The situation in Catalonia is even more extreme, according to Daniel Marco, Director General of Innovation and the Digital Economy of the Generalitat: from 2008 to 2020, employment in the sector grew by 46.5%, while the global economy in Catalonia fell by 4.5%.

Jordi Arrufí, director of the Digital Talent program at Mobile World Capital in Barcelona, ​​explained that the city currently has more than 77,000 employees, 14% more than last year. This growth has been due to the “importation” of talent because universities are not training enough. Thus, in the last year the number of digital professionals in other cities has increased by 3,600 people and, with 24,000 people, they already represent 31% of all employees in technology companies in Barcelona. Madrid, London and Buenos Aires are the main exporters of workers to the Catalan capital.

Highest salaries

The increase in the demand for workers has forced companies to raise their salaries: the gross salary of digital professionals in Barcelona stands at 37,500 euros, 21% higher than the average for the profession in Spain (30,807 euros). These salary levels, however, are much lower than the European average: the average salary in London is over 73,000 euros a year, which means that Barcelona is gaining in competitiveness, introducing new companies compared to other cities except Madrid, where wages are slightly lower. (34,072 euros per year).

Arrufi acknowledges that the difficulty of finding professionals is a major obstacle to the development of digital companies in Barcelona: in the last two years, the demand for digital employment has grown by 80% and the supply of professionals has only grown by 23%. Thus, he explained, only 15 candidates are submitted for each digital job offer, two less than last year, far from the 36 candidates that companies have for non-technological job offers.

The professional deficit is even harder in some areas, such as Big Data (6 candidates per offer), Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence or the Internet of Things (2 candidates per offer). This means that cybersecurity is the sector that imports the most professionals to Barcelona, ​​with 37.9% of the workforce coming from abroad; In Big Data, 34%. Arrufi has asked Spain for more facilities to hire foreign professionals, "technological visas", following the example of Portugal and Estonia.