Dive Brief:
- Most of the IT professionals (51%) in a Ponemon Institute survey released Feb. 11 said they believe automation will take over IT security jobs. However, 54% don't think automation will replace "human intuition and hands-on experience." 1,000 IT and security professionals were polled by the Ponemon Institute, in partnership with DomainTools.
- Adoption of AI tools has had "mixed results" overall, the poll noted; 40% of respondents think automation lowers human error and nearly 3 in 4 professionals polled said they believe automation is incapable of doing certain tasks that IT professionals can perform.
- More than two-thirds of respondents said their IT security functions are understaffed, an improvement from last year's 75%. Still, concerns about job loss to automation have grown.
Dive Insight:
One takeaway from the Ponemon survey is that while IT professionals believe they'll lose their jobs to automation at some point in time, there's still a shortage of skilled cybersecurity specialists. This revelation coincides with with a study from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., showing that 80% of the respondents have a hard time filling jobs, largely due in part to skill shortages. Professions such as cybersecurity suffer particularly difficult skill gaps, even as employers continue to increase their headcounts.
Despite talent shortages, private and mid-market companies are making greater investments in technology, according to a Deloitte report released in September. An overwhelming majority of respondents said that technology is changing their hiring practices, and prompting them to include upskilling workers to build the kind of labor force they need.
To meet rising demand, however, employers are shifting their talent strategies. A Robert Half survey showed that nearly all the IT managers polled said they plan to hire interim professionals and that the assignments will be project-based partly in response to talent shortages. Respondents were especially on the hunt for cybersecurity experts, along with specialists in cloud computing, business intelligence and reporting services, software development and information-technology and database management.
