Technological needs for Aveiro

Technology is already present in our lives. This new reality is accompanied by several advantages. The Internet of things, together with Big Data, are and will continue to be the most used form of intelligent system in the near future. With these technologies, health, education, politics, the labour market, and other sectors of our lives will benefit greatly.

A 2019 study conducted by the company Ernst & Young SA on digitization in Portugal, points out that, globally, the Portuguese assess the impact of digital in their lives as very positive, with 75% recognizing advantages in terms of communication with the family and friends and 73% with the same opinion regarding professional communication.

Despite the benefits pointed out, the same survey highlighted that the Portuguese are skeptical about the degree of modernity of the digital economy, with 45% believing that we are slightly or very behind towards other developed countries. Women and young people are those who have a less optimistic outlook regarding the degree of modernity of the economy.

However, it is a mistake to think that there are no technological opportunities in Portugal. The technological sector does not discriminate against age or gender. It is expanding the role of women in which several companies encourage programmers through specific programs. Young people are also privileged, since in the country there are several centers of excellence in technological training, in addition to specific (rapid) training programs that facilitate their insertion in the labour market.Aveiro is a pioneer region when it comes to technological opportunities. The Professional Insertion Office (GIP) of the Municipality of Aveiro, whose mission is to provide support to unemployed youth and adults in their path of insertion or reintegration into the labour market, discloses the vacancies available in the region on a weekly basis. In 2020, approximately 22.5% of the advertisements published were in the TICE (Information Technology, Communication and Electronics) areas, with special emphasis on opportunities in the areas of program ming, data, software development and testing.

The areas with the greatest demand by companies in the region coincide with the study on the competences gaps in the region carried out by the Labour Observatory, where programming, machine learning, big data, software testing appeared as the areas identified by companies as where there is a greater need of professionals. What is observed is a scenario of lack of specialized labour where many companies have difficulty finding specialists to fill the positions offered.

For the future, the emphasis will continue to be on finding specialized professions in the use of digital data, focusing on professionals still scarce in the market, namely the case of data scientists.

Refusing training in new technologies will make the professional out of step with the offer of opportunities and pose an even more relevant problems in the context of digitalization, where some professions will be extinct and others will be reformulated.