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Some of the fastest growing financial technology firms in Wales are at risk of being held back by skills shortages, a leading specialist lawyer has warned.
Cerian Jones said so-called fintech companies have told her they are "chasing fish in the same small pool".
She said those firms not actually trying to fill a recruitment gap "are trying to retain staff so they don't go elsewhere".
Cardiff is facing competition from London and Bristol among other cities.
Ms Jones, a patents attorney and partner at UDL in Cardiff, said: "When I talk to software companies about what their biggest challenge is, nine times out of 10 it's recruitment.
"These are very skilled positions, needing skilled graduates with the right coding and development skills."
She said there was a lure of working in London and firms in south Wales were having to be creative in trying to entice people "in a candidates' market".
Some were finding it difficult, even when offering £60,000 salaries.
There you have it. You can code to make banks richer. In Cardiff.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @06:51AM (4 children)
Would living in London mean you can get all the way through school, including college, without a language? I doubt it.
Welsh is as useful as anything else, which is to say that nothing is useful for a native English speaker. Look at it from an economics perspective, not silly emotion:
Of the adults who are competent in a second language, only 2% of them got there via school instruction. People burn years of precious childhood for nothing, when they could have instead done something of more value. In economics, we call this an "opportunity cost". That time could have gone to sleep, exercise, learning chemistry, learning calculus... or even learning economics.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday November 19 2017, @09:25AM (3 children)
Learning languages - the problem, of course, is that you usually don't know what language will be useful to you later in life. When I was in school, for example, most people chose Spanish, but German was also on offer. I went the Spanish route, and 20 years later I was working in Germany. Great, wrong pick, but who knew?
"nothing is useful for a native English speaker"
Cluebat, dude. You're the ugly American I keep running into in various countries.
"People burn years of precious childhood for nothing, when they could have instead done something of more value."
Yes, well, lots of school subjects aren't taken seriously, but which ones - that depends on the kid. Some kids figure all those math courses were a waste, but they loved the language courses - and went for careers accordingly. Others blow off the language courses, but love the math. Still others hated languages and math, but maybe went for social studies or science, or music, or...
School is about providing a broad foundation, so that you can function in society. It is also about providing that broad foundation so that you can figure out what you are actually interested in and potentially good at. If anything, the foundation is too small - once upon a time, there were also courses in the trades - a bit of carpentry, a bit of mechanics, a bit of cooking, a bit of sewing. Those courses really need to come back, because those are also (a) important life skills and (b) valid career choices.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @04:13PM (1 child)
We had three school terms per year. 'Language' was a compulsory subject for the first two years of high school.
Year 7 - First term we studied French. Studied moderately hard. By the end of term we probably knew a few dozen/hundred words, and enough grammer to ask someone to shut the door or where the toilet was. (year 7 was about age 12)
Second term we switched to German. Found it annoying to be forced to switch and start over. By the end of term we knew the days of the week and could count up to ten, say please and thankyou. Had forgotton most of the French.
Third term was Italian. Totally pissed off by then. Mostly fucked around in class. By the end of term we could count up to ten , say hello and goodbye. Had forgotton all the French and German.
Year 8 Did it all again.
At the end of two years of three hours per week I could count up to ten what in I thought was french, but found out later half the numbers were italian.
Stupid fucking "multicultural" school policy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @06:00PM
> Stupid fucking "multicultural" school policy.
No, just plain stupid. 15 weeks or so of learning a language? Why even bother? And French and Italian at the same time (essentially)?
There is no way anyone remotely competent at teaching was involved in that decision.
Though I guess the unfortunate truth is that there are all too many teachers that are no good at teaching.
Funnily though, over the years the only teachers I actually remember are the good ones, even though I do remember having quite a few classes with bad teachers...
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday November 19 2017, @09:11PM
sudo mod me up