ICT and Employment in Australia

This assignment explores the multifaceted impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on employment in Australia. It examines various aspects, including the effects of ICTs on different sectors, skill requirements, job creation and displacement, and the implications for future workforce development. The analysis draws upon relevant literature, research findings, and policy documents to provide a comprehensive understanding of this evolving landscape.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL ISSUES IN IT
Professional issues in IT
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Literature review..............................................................................................................................4
ICT employment..........................................................................................................................4
Ethical and socio-technical challenges faced by IT professionals...............................................5
Standards, codes of conducts and legislative obligations............................................................6
Roles and responsibilities of ICT professionals...........................................................................6
Discussion........................................................................................................................................7
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The topic will introduce the various issues that may be faced while managing the IT
systems and here the issues in ICT employment will be discussed here. The ICT employment
represents the various individuals who are working within the Information and Communication
Technology sector or ICT and the level of employment is measured in percentage within the ICT
sector. The topic will provide a brief literature review considering the various challenges and
issues faced by the IT professionals along with the standards, codes of conducts and legislative
obligations that are required for maintaining professionalism within the Information and
communication technology sector (Buchanan et al. 2013). As the topic is concerned with the
employment within the ICT sector, so the roles and responsibilities of the ICT professionals will
also be included in context of the business management.
Information and communication technology (ICT) is a kind of information technology
system for facilitating the process of communication and integrate the various components
including the telecommunications technology, hardware and software components, middleware,
storage devices, databases and other systems for managing storage and retrieval of data and
information. The telephone networks and other IT systems are integrated with the cabling system
for distribution and management of data and information through management of signals. With
the advancement in technology and communication nowadays, the ICT applications, concepts
and procedures have evolved from time to time and even provided enough scopes for storage,
retrieval, manipulation, transmission and sharing of information properly. According to
Hajkowicz et al. (2016), though the ICT employment has created a major impact on the various
dimensions of employment relationship and quality of job, there have been few issues faced as

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well including changing nature and structure of the organizations, lack of open ended
employment contracts and the time dimension to employment. Due to the changing nature of the
organisation, there has been polarization of skills and it may even result in social exclusion.
Based on the ICT employment requirements and opportunities, the labour standards are needed
to be focused on otherwise it might lead to higher unemployment rate, furthermore could create
threats to the labour standards (García-Álvarez 2015). The topic will further illustrate how skills
can be achieved for personal fulfillment of needs and maintain fairness for the system of
managing control and discipline. The training and developmental opportunities will also benefit
the ICT employment practices by enhancing the skills of individual working within the
organisation and improve the level of security for the job too (Garcia-Murillo, MacInnes and
Bauer 2015).
Literature review
ICT employment
The recruitment of ICT professionals is one of the major priorities of the ICT industry,
Australia and it has been done for managing global economic growth. Based on the responses of
Mavromaras (2013), the new trends showed that the supplies had been on the positive side and
according to the employment trends, the talent managers, stakeholders and employers have been
engaged together for seeking talent. With the evolvement of ICT employment skills, the job
markets and employment opportunities in Australia have increased and the ratio between
permanent and contract hires remained effective as well (Golden 2013). The ICT professionals
are provided with both monetary and non-monetary benefits and the time taken for engaging the
pool of talents has also been reduced. According to recent trends and statistics, there has been 2.7

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percent increase in the employment opportunities while the number of vacancies for ICT
professionals within the organizations present in Australia has also increased. More focus is
established on the infrastructure of technology, data protection and intellectual properties, which
has not only enabled successful contract and permanent hires but also has employed the most
skilled and knowledgeable workers within the domain (Hajkowicz et al. 2016). The employers
have also preferred the experienced workers who can leave a positive mark on the business
functioning.
Ethical and socio-technical challenges faced by IT professionals
One of the major ethical challenges was the poor quality of job for which the individuals
were recruited. The time management is another issue faced during the ICT employment. The
quality of job is dependent upon the scopes and opportunities provided to improving the work
life balance and fulfillment of needs and preferences of the employees. According to
Vanderlinde, van Braak and Dexter (2012), there were few situations where the job roles had
been found in the lower skills dimension, which created further issues relating to the ICT
employment and job roles. The job quality must be managed according to the scopes and
opportunities provided for generating more income and create lifelong employment opportunities
too (Herbert et al. 2013). With the evolvement of cloud-based technologies, many ICT
professionals find it difficult to manage the platforms properly and create a stable hardware and
software architecture. The management of big data is difficult and the huge quantity of
unstructured data creates difficulties for managing the big data properly. According to Garcia-
Murillo, MacInnes and Bauer (2015), the IT professionals fail to control the automation process
sometimes, which further creates issues for monitoring the devices that are linked with the
networks. Cyber security is a major priority for the ICT professionals and lack of privacy and

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security can be a major issue too (Mavromaras 2013). Integrating the cloud computing in the IT
strategies could also be a major difficulty face by the IT professionals.
Standards, codes of conducts and legislative obligations
The code of professional conduct illustrates the values that are needed to be maintained
such as honesty, integrity, competence, professional development and professionalism, public
interest and enhancing the quality of life. The codes of conducts have helped in considering the
personal opinions of individuals and even managed updating of skills, knowledge and expertise
for creating a positive impact on the level of professionalism within the ICT industry. Based on
the codes of conduct, training and educational opportunities were provided for professional
development and maintain quality standards for the job roles provided to the employees (Romeo,
Lloyd and Downes 2012). Vanderlinde, van Braak and Dexter (2012) stated that these standards,
codes of conducts and legislations have also limited the workplace diversity and allowed for
deliverance of employment opportunities, proper wages and working conditions considering the
skills possessed by them and their performances. The discrimination and inequality within the
ICT industries have been reduced and every employee have remained proud of their job roles,
which promoted higher professionalism within the ICT industry (Sabadash 2013).
Roles and responsibilities of ICT professionals
The implementation of ICT systems has created better connectivity, created digitization
of organizational activities and creates a pool of talented workers who possess the most suitable
skills and knowledge to make the companies achieve future success and growth. The ICT
professionals have been provided with flexible employment opportunities along with good
quality jobs so that they can handle their individual roles and responsibilities with ease and
efficiency (Tarutė and Gatautis 2014). According to von Konsky, Jones and Miller (2014), few

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of the specific tasks handled by the ICT professionals included verification and management of
tasks, copy writing activities and designing of graphics and maintenance of database for storage
and retrieval of data too, which were the major implications of ICT curriculum design. Few of
the major roles managed by the ICT professionals are development of Java software, systems
engineer, .Net developer, network and business analyst and administrator of the entire system.
The flexible job roles not only allowed them to maintain balance between their personal and
work life, but also helped them to learn lifelong for improving their skills, knowledge and
expertise level consistently (Vanderlinde, van Braak and Dexter 2012).
Discussion
According to Tarutė and Gatautis (2014), the ICT has created a huge impact on the
performance of the business organizations and enabled innovation for creating more employment
opportunities and enhancing the quality of job too. It prevented the unsustainable employment
portfolios and even created equal chances for every employee to get jobs and obtain a high level
of professionalism. The major issues that were faced included the quality of job that kept of
deteriorating because of the lack of skills and knowledge among the IT professionals, lack of
ability to handle the devices linked with the networks and finally poor privacy and security levels
too. Based on the statements made by Sabadash (2013), the ICT enabled systems have managed
to ensure technological progress and even increased the scopes and opportunities of employment,
furthermore improved the job quality too. The increase in network organizations also is based on
the employment relationship, which further created a major challenge during the employment
study and even created lack of control and lower trust and loyalty among the employees (von
Konsky, Jones and Miller 2014).

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Due to the implementation of ICT, it was seen that generating high level commitment for
the short term assignments also created risks where the employees were paid lesser wages. The
careers did not have any boundaries and the asymmetrical structure of the organisation created
more challenges while making steady transformation from the lower skilled workers to the
highly skilled workers (Mavromaras2013). From the pessimistic perspective, according to
Mavromaras (2013), there was lower control over the automation process and pressure was
extreme, which reduced the skills and level of competence among the workers. The power was
centralized and it resulted in intensification, which further posed as major threats while making
progress and lifelong learning within the ICT industry (Buchanan et al. 2013). To overcome the
issues, the ICT implementation was done according to the various standards, codes of conducts
and legislations for ensuring that the job roles could meet the quality standards and proper
management of work and time would be possible for the production process and daily activities
managed within the business organizations in Australia. Focus on the management and control of
time has been shifted to the development and production of various autonomous forms of work
for facilitating the knowledge and learning process. However, the development of ICTs was the
cause of many employment contracts and it even contributed to the maintenance of consistency
in the labor market. Flexible scheduling was done to assign the right job roles to the right
employees and ensured that the issues with the labour management were overcome and job
quality could be enhanced (Romeo, Lloyd and Downes 2012). Proper time management was
possible and a good work life balance had been maintained as well, which allowed the
employees and staffs to remain healthy and safe while working within the organization. Thus, it
could be understood that the though there were certain issues with the ICT, still the benefits had

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outweighed the drawbacks and enhanced the efficiency of ICT industry, allowed the workers to
maintain good work life balance and ensured successful lifelong learning too (Golden 2013).

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References
Buchanan, J., Dymski, G., Froud, J., Johal, S., Leaver, A. and Williams, K., 2013. Unsustainable
employment portfolios. Work, employment and society, 27(3), pp.396-413.
García-Álvarez, M.T., 2015. Analysis of the effects of ICTs in knowledge management and
innovation: The case of Zara Group. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, pp.994-1002.
Garcia-Murillo, M., MacInnes, I. and Bauer, J., 2015. Effects of ICTs on employment: a
conceptual framework.
Golden, A.G., 2013. The structuration of information and communication technologies and
work–life interrelationships: Shared organizational and family rules and resources and
implications for work in a high-technology organization. Communication Monographs, 80(1),
pp.101-123.
Hajkowicz, S.A., Reeson, A., Rudd, L., Bratanova, A., Hodgers, L., Mason, C. and Boughen, N.,
2016. Tomorrow’s digitally enabled workforce: Megatrends and scenarios for jobs and
employment in Australia over the coming twenty years. Australian Policy Online.
Herbert, N., de Salas, K., Lewis, I., Cameron-Jones, M., Chinthammit, W., Dermoudy, J., Ellis,
L. and Springer, M., 2013, January. Identifying career outcomes as the first step in ICT curricula
development. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference-
Volume 136(pp. 31-40). Australian Computer Society, Inc..
Mavromaras, K., 2013. Measuring Skill Imbalances in Times of Change: recent evidence from
the Australian ICT sector. In Workshop, March (Vol. 21, p. 22).

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Romeo, G., Lloyd, M. and Downes, T., 2012. Teaching Teachers for the Future (TTF): Building
the ICT in education capacity of the next generation of teachers in Australia. Australasian
Journal of Educational Technology, 28(6).
Sabadash, A., 2013. ICT-induced technological progress and employment: a happy marriage or a
dangerous liaison? a literature review. JRC-IPTS Working Papers.
Tarutė, A. and Gatautis, R., 2014. ICT impact on SMEs performance. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 110, pp.1218-1225.
Vanderlinde, R., van Braak, J. and Dexter, S., 2012. ICT policy planning in a context of
curriculum reform: Disentanglement of ICT policy domains and artifacts. Computers &
Education, 58(4), pp.1339-1350.
von Konsky, B.R., Jones, A. and Miller, C., 2014, January. Visualising career progression for
ICT professionals and the implications for ICT curriculum design in higher education.
In Proceedings of the Sixteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference-Volume 148 (pp.
13-20). Australian Computer Society, Inc..