The presence of women in the workforces of certain technological sectors continues to be quite a minority. One of them is the one of the data centerswhere according to a report by the Uptime Institute, a 77% have less than 10% of their workforce made up of women. And 20% do not have any women in the design and operations teams. Despite everything, this percentage has improved slightly, since in 2018 it was 26%.
It does not seem, therefore, that the efforts of data center operators in recent years in terms of inclusion and diversity in their workplaces to balance the distribution of workers, and increase the presence of women in a field dominated by men , have had many results. And that hiring more women could help reduce the problems they have in finding qualified workers. Especially when it seems that the gap between supply and demand for jobs in the sector will continue to grow.
According to the report, “a growing number of unfilled positions, coupled with a low and stagnant proportion of women suggests that the data center industry still has a long way to go to harness the unused potential of women as a workforce«.
Finding qualified personnel to keep data centers running has been difficult for quite some time. But the situation has worsened in recent years, as companies invest more in more computing power. Today, 54% of data center operators cite staffing as their top problem. In 2021, the data centers that thought so were 47%, while in 2018 they were 38%.
In addition to having trouble finding staff, data centers have another problem with their workforce: retaining talent. According to Uptime, 42% of data center operators have trouble retaining staff, partly because the competition makes offers. They are 17% more data centers than five years ago.
Furthermore, the situation does not seem to improve in the future. Quite the opposite. Uptime notes that the shortage of available personnel to work in data centers is set to worsen in the coming years. In addition, much of the data center workforce in North America and Western Europe is beginning to approach retirement age, which means that there will be many people retiring around the same time. Not only that, but they will also leave centers without highly experienced workers.
As a result, Uptime points out that hiring will continue to be the top issue for data center operators for years to come. But it also points out that they can succeed in attracting workers through training and mentoring programs. Bet on increasing automationespecially in systems that use machine learning or Artificial Intelligence to reduce workload and allow a smaller number of employees to work more efficiently, may be a solution to the problem.
Network operators continue to bet on the idea that, at some point, Artificial Intelligence will be responsible for automating the management and adoption of corrective measures of the networks. However, data center operators seem to be less than sold on the idea.
On the one hand, Uptime stresses that more and more data center operators are expressing their confidence in Artificial Intelligence. In fact, 57% say they would trust a “machine learning model properly trained to make operational decisions«. This trust may be the result of advances seen lately in generative Artificial Intelligence, such as ChatGPT, among other models.
However, at Uptime they also recognize that most data center operators do not expect a model like this to be ready to operate before the next five years, and only about half of those who have responded to the survey that has served As a basis for preparing the report, they hope that Artificial Intelligence will allow them to reduce the staff they need.
