China Faces IT Talent Shortage

According to McKinsey recent report, China faced with the shortage of quality IT specialists as universities fail to deliver engineering resources ready for real world experience.

Now, to some extent the situation looks similar to the one in Russia several years ago. And to this day the kind of supply paradox emerging in Mainland China, when only a fraction of country’s enormous pool of potential talent is suitable for service occupations, is yet to be fully addressed in Russia.


However, China faces greater challenge due to country’s economy alignment towards manufacturing. Present China domination in manufacturing predefines the country’s development direction and stalls further growth in services sector. As McKinsey points out, services sector in China is among the most underdeveloped.

The other major difference, if we compare the two countries, is China’s cultural and geographical distance from Europe and Americas. Generally, as McKinsey reports, it takes serious financial and time efforts to train students’ language skills and provide cultural fit within multinational companies.

While overall communication style and cultural fit as well as poor English are great challenges in China, Russia is more aligned to western culture.


Direct link to McKinsey report