Abstract:

The demand for ICT (information and communication technologies) jobs in Europe is continuously growing that, in turn, determines the increasing demand for ICT competencies. Following the trend, higher education institutions offer students ICT-based courses and study programmes and therefore contribute to the higher employability of their graduates. The goal of the research is to analyze the perspectives of students from IT study programmes of Latvian HEI in labor market, as well as to detect the most demanded competences needed for IT specialists. To achieve the research goal representatives of Latvian companies from different sectors were surveyed, using the authors’ developed questionnaire. Data processing was performed in the SPSS environment with the application of such methods as scale reliability analysis with application of Cronbach’s alpha, analysis of means, and independent samples t-test. The study revealed the most important competencies needed for IT specialist in the opinion of Latvian employers, which are problem-solving skills and technical skills necessary to develop an IT product. Team working ability and communication skills were also rated as very important for IT professionals. Respondents also highly evaluated the current and future demand for IT professionals with the higher education in Latvian labor market.