The global industry anticipates a significant shortage of field technicians and engineers due to the impending retirement of the Baby Boomer generation, which could result in a loss of up to 40% of the 20 million personnel over the next few years. Many field service operations already face staffing shortages, complicating the hiring of younger skilled workers. The traditional blue-collar image of field service careers deters young talent, who prefer emerging technology roles. This labor shortage in the sector is exacerbated by perceptions of lack of appeal as compared to white-collar jobs.
David Cramer, president of service delivery at global data centre and network optimisation provider Park Place Technologies (PPT), states: "One of the challenges with this is that blue-collar work has become less attractive generally. It's a challenge getting hold of plumbers and electricians, and field engineering has experienced a similar negative perception as most people now want white-collar jobs."
Dan De Backer, senior vice-president and product manager at Extreme Networks, explains: "Being a field technician is just not as appealing of a job. If people have the option of either working at Google or being a field technician, they'll opt for Google nine times out of 10 as it's more enticing [than] being a field technician."
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