Japan Database Planned of Digitally Savvy Personnel; Meant to Eliminate Regional Gaps in Digital Transformation

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:32 JST, November 25, 2024

The communications ministry plans to create a database of digitally savvy human resources to help local governments hire such staff, according to sources.

Work is expected to begin next fiscal year on the project, which is aimed at helping prefectural governments promote digital transformation (DX) in their municipalities. The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry wants to prevent regional disparities resulting from the concentration of digital manpower in certain locations.

A basic policy on the digitization of administrative procedures and other matters was approved at a Cabinet meeting in June. It includes a call to create a system to encourage digital transformation in all the prefectures by the end of next fiscal year, as some local governments are lagging behind.

The ministry therefore intends to seek cooperation from IT companies and other entities to compile a database of information about IT engineers and other people with digital skills, and handle this data collectively. Under this system, prefectural governments will be able to list engineers deemed suitable to handle their respective issues and pool specialized human resources.

The ministry also plans to coordinate such matters as matching the right personnel for the right job, if local governments do not have sufficient know-how to recruit such people. Those hired through the database will offer advice and other technical support toward the digitization of each municipality.

Engineers and other digitally savvy personnel are concentrated in the Tokyo metropolitan area, making it even more difficult for regional areas to hire such staff. According to a tally based on the 2020 Population Census, more than 750,000, or 60% of about 1.2 million IT engineers nationwide, were in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The ministry plans to work with the Digital Agency to build a database to eliminate regional disparities by improving the hiring situation, which has undermined DX efforts by local governments.

It also intends to appoint digital talents that are hired through the initiative as “local government DX accelerators.”

When recruitment is successful, the IT industry and local governments will be informed of these cases so as to raise awareness of promoting digital transformation in regional areas and increase the use of the database. The ministry aims to appoint a total of 500 people as DX accelerators.

In addition, the ministry envisages providing IT engineers who are not familiar with the administrative field with training and educational materials regarding basic government administrative work, such as dealing with local assembly affaires and formulating budgets. The people hired are also expected to receive training at Local Autonomy College and other institutions.