Skills Gap Hits IT Departments, Targets Mainframes By Hari Candadai By 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there aren’t enough skilled people to take them, including many legacy software and mainframe positions. You’ve probably seen the Korn Ferry report (https:// www.icims.com/blog/how-big-is-the-skills-gap-3-statistics-you-need-to-know/) that discusses the impending $8.5 trillion talent shortage. The report states that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there aren’t enough skilled people to take them. Nowhere is this more keenly felt than in tech. According to Anna Ruby in “How big is the skills gap? three statistics you need to know,” (https://www.icims.com/blog/how-big-is-the-skills-gap-3-statistics-you-need-to-know/) it | Enterprise Executive | 2023: Issue 4 is not a people gap necessarily, but rather a significant lack of qualified candidates. Ruby says there are plenty of job seekers, however “companies are still struggling to find candidates with the skills they need.” In IT specifically, the younger generations meant to replace retiring workers have been trained on different systems. Senior staff members have reached retirement age after having worked most of their careers on systems like Db2 and Cognos, while recent graduates with degrees in computer science have learned different environments, such as the Cloud or app development. However, older languages are still propping up aging systems. In “Why the Cost of Maintaining Legacy Systems Only Grows Over Time,” (https://www.mendix. 10