Negative growth for tech sector

While technology is booming all across the globe, in Bermuda the industry is suffering.

Much like the rest of Bermuda’s economy, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector saw a decline in growth of 1.2 per cent down to $236 million.

In 2009 ICT contributed $270 million to Bermuda’s economy but has seen declines to $254m (2010), $239m (2009) to 2012’s mark.

The decline was driven by a 20.3 per cent drop in value added from the ICT Content and media industries due to lower revenue earned from publishing activities. 

Activity in the ICT trade industries also decreased 12 per cent, adversely affected by lower sales of computers and photographic equipment.

In contrast, the ICT services industries saw a marked increase in value added of $5.3 million as a result of increased output from telecommunications and computer consultancy.  

ICT-related jobs continued its toward trend, dropping 8.3 per cent in 2012 from 2011. This decrease was mainly due to a decline in the number of electrical engineers and computer programmers and analysts.

There were 838 ICT-related jobs in 2012 compared to 914 in 2011.

In 2012, approximately 36 per cent of all companies outsourced their ICT needs to other companies, which marked a five percentage point rise over 2011. This outsourcing led to the loss of some ICT-related jobs as companies restructured and in some cases redomiciled. 

Although the proportion of companies that hired other local businesses to fufil their ICT needs increased from 75 per cent to 77 per cent, this increase did not prevent the loss of 22 local computing professional jobs at the end of 2012.

Deficit

Bermuda recorded a trade deficit on ICT goods and services in 2012. A total of $126.8 million was spent overseas, up 7.6 per cent over 2011. Exports of ICT services totalled $83.9 million, up 7.2 per cent from last year.

Businesses in Bermuda continue to rely on ICT during their day-to-day operations. 

The report looked at use of ICT by industry and there is no surprise that 100 per cent if financial institutions and insurance-elated companies use computers. The construction sector was the lowest with only 82 per cent using computers. Surprisingly only 96 percent of ICT companies use computers. 

Companies that had a  web presence varied from just 19 per cent in the agriculture sector and 24 per cent for the construction industry to 89 per cent for financial institutions and 81 per cent for accommodation services. 

Overall, nearly three out of four businesses (74%) had a web presence in 2012, which showed dramatic growth from 51 per cent in 2011. 

Web presence

Most of these companies did not use their web presence for e-commerce.

Only a small percentage of businesses place orders via the Internet. Financial institutions once again led the way with 56 per cent with insurance-related firms next at 33 per cent.

ICT related companies were one of the lowest at just 15 per cent, which only saw the agricultural sector post a lower percentage (13%).

A total of 41 per cent used the Internet to place orders on the Internet while just 18 per cent received orders via the Internet.

The larger the company, the more likely it was to make use of ICT.

Every company that had 50 or more employees used computers while firms with less than 10 employees only saw 83 per cent use of computers. 

Recrutment

A total of 100 per cent of companies with 250 or more employees used the Internet for recruitment whereas just 10 per cent of those with less than 10 employees did. 

Overall, the percentage of companies that used the Internet for: staff training (54%), recruitment (51%), delivering products (27%), customer service (59%), Internet banking (91%), Interacting with Government (77%), telephoning via the Internet (52%), sending or receiving e-mail (95%). n