High tech may not have enough technicians

The Ministry of Digital Development has published a list of higher education specialties related to IT and telecommunications, whose owners can count on a deferment from mobilization. Employees must also work for accredited companies and perform “critical functions”. The industry is positive about the ministry’s initiative, but is already assessing personnel losses due to the conscription of those who do not have a specialized higher education and the departure of employees abroad.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the order of the Ministry of Digital Transformation No. 712, which contains a list of 195 priority specialties and areas of training in the field of information technology and communications (we are talking only about higher education). The list is needed to identify categories of staff who could potentially receive a deferment from the partial mobilization that began on September 21st. The list includes, for example, linguists and psychologists. Such specialists work, in particular, on projects for the development of artificial intelligence systems, speech analytics, etc.

Employees who want to get a reservation must check their specialty in the diploma with the order and apply for a deferment through a special service that the ministry has launched at the State Services. The application is prepared by the employee himself, but it must be accompanied by a form of confirmation of compliance with the requirements electronically signed by the general director of the organization. These applications are sent through the State Services to the Ministry of Defense, whose representatives will make the final decision on the provision of the reservation.

Candidates for booking must be employees of accredited IT companies (they are listed in the register of the Ministry of Digital Development), work full-time and “perform mission-critical functions”. These functions are not defined in the order.

As explained to “Kommersant” in the Ministry of Digital Development, “the employer determines the employee’s contribution to ensuring the critical functions of the company, starting from job responsibilities.”

The head of the Ministry of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev held a webinar on September 26, answering questions from representatives of IT and telecom companies. Among the still unclear aspects that concern market participants are: the deadline for granting a deferment, the feedback form from the Ministry of Defense (who and in what form confirms that the employee will not be mobilized), the possibility in the future to provide deferrals to specialists with specialized secondary education, etc. One of the participants of the webinar asked a direct question what to do if technical specialists without higher education who maintain base stations and equipment fall under the mobilization, there is no answer yet.

The problem remains critical, since most of the technical specialists servicing base stations and laying fiber-optic networks, as a rule, have only a secondary specialized education, says a Kommersant source in the industry.

Another Kommersant source confirms that the risks of mobilizing technical personnel remain: “Communication operators will insist that these people perform critical functions, but no one can give guarantees.” According to him, the highest risk is among employees of mobile phone stores. Operators, the interlocutor of Kommersant says, have already begun to assess potential personnel losses. “In our company, 45% of specialists fall under the criteria for mobilization, unfortunately, being on the list of the Ministry of Digital Development does not guarantee a delay,” he emphasizes. Operators refuse official comments.

Data processing centers (DPCs) can also face a similar problem. Many specialists involved in providing critical systems and processes, including developers and programmers, system engineers and data center operation specialists, do not have higher education, Pavel Kulakov, CEO of the data center and cloud provider Oxygen, says: “Their one-time loss can put blow to reliability and uninterrupted operation of data centers”.

“We proposed to provide a deferment from mobilization for employees with secondary specialized education,” says Nikolai Komlev, head of the Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises. “But the Ministry of Digital Development has already done everything possible in the current situation.” He adds that the shortage of personnel will be associated not only with the mobilization of some employees, but also with their departure abroad: “In the spring, we observed a wave of outflow of IT specialists from companies, now it is clearly more.”

Nikita Korolev, Julia Silence