-The implementation of new ERP systems or the adaptation of existing ERP systems is a key challenge for modern companies, which can also be seen in the development of relevant job advertisements. A specific analysis of relevant job advertisements in Austria shows a professionalisation in ERP selection, but also a shift towards employing such experts instead of outsourcing this expertise. Job titles and job specific requirements (competences) mentioned in job advertisements in 2017 and 2019 show a respective development. The Austrian job market for relevant experts is characterised by a high demand and insufficient supply, which implies that the more recent job advertisements are broader, showing a hope for at least somehow fitting candidates.
The implementation of new ERP systems or the adaptation
of existing ERP systems through extensions, releases and
supplementary products is a key challenge for modern
companies [
This article aims to get to the bottom of this phenomenon
by carrying out an analysis of job advertisements. These job
advertisements include advertised positions in the area of ERP
decision making / ERP implementation / further development
of ERP. For this purpose, online job advertisements from
November 2016 to November 2019 are used, which were
recorded in “Jobfeed Austria” - a product jointly developed by
Textkernel and 3s. Jobfeed is a web crawler that captures and
deduplicates online job advertisements from different
platforms. Every year, Jobfeed in Austria captures almost one
million deduplicated job advertisements, so that it is assumed
that Jobfeed represents about 95% of all Austrian online job
advertisements. [
II.
The search for relevant advertised positions included the following search strings (as keywords in the full text of the advertisement):
•
A. First overview - regional job market, demand for highly qualified workers, demand via recruitment agencies
The keyword search in Jobfeed delivered a total of 4,715 deduplicated job advertisements for the mentioned period (total: 13,852 job advertisements with multiple entries). These 4,715 advertisements were first subjected to a rough analysis, which shows the following table for the job market in Austria:
Province Vienna Upper Austria Styria Lower Austria Salzburg Vorarlberg Tirol Carinthia Burgenland Total
Number of Advertisments 1.975 640 Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
The regional distribution of the advertisements shows a demand focus in Vienna, followed by the industrial federal provinces of Upper Austria and Styria. Vienna also dominates the demand for highly qualified specialists (at least university degree), followed by Tyrol and Vorarlberg. The job demand of recruitment agencies (in comparison to direct job demand from companies) shows a different regional structure (high density of agency demand in Styria, Lower Austria, Upper Austria and Carinthia), and is rather an indication of the regional importance of recruitment agencies.
B. Detailed definition, selection of samples for a comparison over periods
On closer analysis of the 4,715 extracted job advertisements, it quickly becomes clear that only a small proportion of the job advertisements actually address the intended job market for experts in ERP decision making / ERP implementation / further development of ERP. In many cases, ERP specialists are sought without the intention to change the ERP system. Due to this reason, a manual analysis of the advertisements was carried out, from which 486 job advertisements were finally selected that meet the specific requirements mentioned above. From these 486 job advertisements, in turn, two random samples were drawn upon: • •
Sample 1: The chronologically oldest 100 matching job advertisements covering the period 25.11.2016 to 29.09.2017 (for the sake of simplicity, it is called "2017").
Sample 2: The most recent 100 matching job advertisements covering the period 07.06.2019 to 20.11.2019 (for the sake of simplicity, it is called "2019").
So, while the first 100 matching advertisements still required 308 calendar days, the period for the last 100 matching advertisements was only 166 calendar days. This can be seen as an indication of a more intensive personnel search in 2019 compared to 2017.
C. Development of a professional job title or field of work?
The next step was to analyse the job titles used in the advertisements. As already mentioned, the female form was explicitly omitted in favor of simplicity of presentation. The following table shows a comparison of the terms used in 2017 and 2019. 2017 shows that there is a wider range of job titles used in the advertisements, e.g., business analyst, software developer, IT manager, or SAP consultant. The term consultant ERP systems has a comparatively low significance.
Nevertheless, this latter term now seems to be gaining ground in the relevant job advertisements, because in 2019 the term consultant ERP systems will be the dominant job title in the relevant job advertisements, followed by business analyst, system administrator, IT manager, and analyst. The terms that have been summarized under "Unknown" are sometimes very flowery job titles of the companies themselves (e.g., "ERP Guru") or they are very general terms without any specific connection to the job description (e.g., "employee" or "division manager"). However, the terms have not been manipulated. IT Project Manager
SAP Consultant D. Variety of business sectors with specific demand increases
In 2017, the demand sector was dominated by IT services, followed by industry. In 2019, the other sectors (trade, consulting, energy supply, general services, etc.) dominated the demand followed by IT services and industry. The expansion of the variety of sectors is a possible indication of the internalisation of the task bundle ERP decision making / ERP implementation / further development of ERP. However, a certain amount of caution should be exercised in this evaluation, as there is a high number of unknown clients for advertisements due to the large number of advertisements placed by recruiters (see figure 1 in the appendix).
E. Demand for qualification levels - increasing demand pressure
In comparison, the qualification level mentioned in the relevant advertisements shows that the demand in 2017 pointed even more decisively to university graduates.
However, the demand pressure has increased in 2019, as
indicated by the category "university or BHS" in the demand
for qualifications. In 2017, this issue is irrelevant. An analysis
of job advertisements in recent years clearly indicates that
qualification requirements are expanded as demand pressure
increases (this usually refers to an explicit shortage of skilled
labor force) [
F. Demand for competence - education and work experience dominate, professionalization?
The following table shows the comparison of the main competences and qualifications in demand due to relevant job advertisements. Whereas in 2017 relevant work experience was still top of the list, the increasing pressure of demand is also leading to a shift towards relevant training ("IT training" as a combined competence category). The advancement of the terms "ERP development and implementation" and "process management and process optimisation" seems to indicate a surge in professionalisation (analogous to the shift in occupational titles towards "consultant ERP systems"). The complete list of competence titles in the advertisements of 2017 and 2019 is shown in the appendix.
ERP development and implementation Business administration education Evaluation User support, training Interface management
Requirement analysis and management Business Informatices User support, training IT project management Business administration education
The activity profile ERP decision / ERP implementation / further development of ERP seems to have become increasingly professional in Austria in recent years. This is indicated by both the job titles used in relevant advertisements and the concepts of competence. In general, demand appears to have accelerated in recent years and the pressure on demand is likely to increase. Whether this development is driven by the economy can only be assumed in this context based on the analysis of advertisements.
Reviewing the employees’ income data contained in the
advertisments, a minimum income is frequently mentioned,
but the variation of income data is high. After standardising
the income data to an annual income, and not considering
missing data (approx. 20%), the income figures rose from
2017 to 2019 with an average yearly income of EUR 46,931
to EUR 47,238, an increase of only 0.65%. Despite the
obvious pressure on demand and the shortage of skilled
employees, companies are still reluctant to disclose income
figures when recruiting staff [
In fact, the analysis of job titles in job advertismets is quite challenging. Job titles and descriptions are created daily and often created by marketing employees, so different job titles may have the same requirements regarding education and experience. So, the analysis of job titles must be done including the respective description of required competences.
The combined analysis allows a careful statement as done in this article.
Especially now, in times of a flourishing job market in IT and ERP, the development of job advertisements may show relevant developments of the professional field itself and the relevant job environment. It is of interest to analyse job advertisements after 2 years again to find out, if the ongoing developments remain or may be changed due to external effects. As experts do expect on the one hand a higher demand connected to digitalisation in the next years, the overall job market may lose some of its recent dynamic on the other hand. These counteracting trends may influence job advertisements for relevant experts for ERP decision making in the future.
To get insight in the job market for ERP decision makers in the future, further analysis of job advertisments may be required using the same set of key words and search strings or a slightly changing set of key word and search strings as the wording in job advertisments may change also. Therefore, a direct comparison of different sets of job advertisments should be conducted very carefully and with a profound understanding of job market and respective changes in the field of ERP decision making.
6% Industry 15% Inner Circle: 2019
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