These Are the Tech Trends Government Might Not Be Ready For

Technology forces including the Internet of Things are changing public and private sectors alike, but governments face unique challenges in fully implementing emerging technology: outdated hiring practices and concerns about the privacy of citizen data, among others. The federal government may soon be stymied by a shortage of young, creative IT workers qualified to design new technology strategies, according to a new Deloitte report. More than a third of federal workers will be eligible for retirement by 2017, the Government Accountability Office forecasts. Another report found that employees under 30 made up 7 percent of the federal workforce in 2013, an eight-year low. Many agencies are struggling to fill the open seats left by retirees, according to Deloitte.

A more modern IT workforce might require “fewer hard technical skills and more soft skills from disciplines like anthropology or sociology,” wrote Deloitte analysts Kristin Russell, Mark White and Paul Krein, the report’s authors. “The real work may involve bringing training, vendor management, and change management capabilities together to achieve an objective” and “not simply grinding out the work.” The new federal IT workforce could promote application programming interfaces, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, among other new technology trends, the report said. The chief information officer position is also evolving, according to Deloitte -- today, it is less of a technical role and more of a strategic one. Legislation including the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act authorizes CIOs to oversee more of the agency’s budget, for instance.