Estonia lacks IT people


Come change the world
Originally uploaded by JKaljundi.

This morning I found a baloon with Skype jobs ad in front of our office quite near to the centre of Tallinn. Unfortunately it never took off, probably because there was no wind.

It is almost impossible to find any IT people in Estonia nowadays and Skype and some others are spending a lot on recruitment advertising. Full-page ads in newspapers and magazines as well as any other forms of marketing. Basically you have to headhunt quite agressively to get someone good, and pay them some extra. IT people here are not so cheap either.

If someone asks me nowadays, should they come and start an IT development centre in Estonia, I have to say no. The 10000 IT specialists we have in total is a small number and it is hard to grow bigger teams, you run into obstacles very soon. IT is not popular among university enrollments and the lack of people grows bigger and bigger each day. Which is sad considering Estonia’s current position on the world’s innovative IT solutions market.