Before an auditorium where businessmen, union leaders, opinion leaders and entrepreneurs were gathered, brought together by the newspaper La República in the forum ‘Ideas to Reactivate the Economy’, the ICT Minister, Mauricio Lizcano, presented the conference ‘The ICT Sector in Economic Reactivation’ ‘, where he socialized the strategy of the National Government and the ICT Ministry to turn the country into a Digital Power.
In his speech, the ICT Minister stated that “technology is the key element to trigger Colombia.” To support this, he presented figures such as that the sector registered a 3.5% participation in the national GDP in 2023. In Colombia, total Internet revenue exceeded $16.74 billion last year, which represents an increase of 9.2% compared to 2022. In addition, mobile Internet connections reached 44.9 million, growing by 12. 07% in 2023 compared to the previous year.
“The ICT sector is one of the few where there is more supply than demand for employment. The average labor income has grown 32% between 2021 and 2023, companies increasingly have to pay more. This has hit the issue of entrepreneurs hard, since they do not have the means to support their human resources, especially in terms of salaries. Colombia has a digital talent gap that would reach between 160,000 and 265,000 jobs in 2025“said the ICT Minister, Mauricio Lizcano (@MauricioLizcano).
Regarding the labor market, 370,000 jobs were created in the ICT sector during 2022, and an increase of 34% is expected according to employers in the sector for the second quarter of 2024. While 14,889 IT companies in the country require talent.
The Minister reiterated that the entity, and through the PotencIA Digital strategy, is working to make the sector the center of the country’s economic growth, through its three axes: Connectivity, Innovation Ecosystems and Digital Education. “Colombia is using this sector to be the marker of the economy, increasing productivity, so that we can carry out digital transformation such as Agrotech, Healthtech and how we transform industries from the regions“.
Finally, he pointed out that Artificial Intelligence is transversal to the National Plan for Connectivity and Digital Transformation, emphasizing the importance of data to advance in this matter, and having academia, businessmen, entrepreneurs and the economy as main actors. popular.
