IT Landscape in Armenia

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Workforce Dynamics:

Armenia was one of the most technologically developed republics of the Former Soviet Union with a special emphasis on the development of Information and Communication Technology industry.  There were about 40 R&D centers in this field, the biggest of them, Yerevan Research Institute of Mathematical Machines employed more than 10,000 employees and produced both hardware (mainframes, computers for the Soviet defense industry) and software.  Correspondingly the country possesses a significant number of computer programmers.  Most of them are graduates from the Yerevan State University and the State Engineering University of Armenia.

Thanks to the development of IT Industry in Armenia, once being one of the most advanced republics in the former Soviet union what regards specialists in the fields of electronics and information, Armenia had got the second chance to develop and fully utilize available humor resources, and based on the current facilities, train and educate new professionals in the field of IT.

The curve above go in line with the companies establishment dynamics and truly indicate the rapid growth of demand for IT skills, more specifically, the increasing number of employees in software companies and growing personnel in IT Education.

It is worth to bring the difference of staff growth between foreign and local software companies in graph (Cumulative Growth of Staff Differentiated Between Local and Foreign Software Companies).  Thus, the growth rate of personnel in software sub-sectors has reached the annual average of 60%, and the number of staff in IT Education institutions has doubled during the last five years.

It should be noted, that although local companies account for more staff than foreign companies do, the number of IT specialists in foreign companies exceeds the number if IT specialists in Armenian companies

Specialists’ Migration and Brain Drain:

 The following graphs present IT specialists migration within Armenia and overseas.

The analysis on the behavior of emigrants says that the behavior can be divided into three stages.  “Sending back remittances to their families in the homeland are the first phase.  The second phase starts after the Diasporas have established themselves in the host countries.  At this stage, significant economies assets are at the command of the members of the Diasporas.  These assets are used along with current incomes, for making long term investments in the home country if conditions permit.  During the third phase the Diaspora associations practices benevolent activities, which are done mostly, implemented through non-governmental organizations. Diasporas tend to support the activities of the NGOs when the governments of the homeland are not strong enough”. [1]