What Kiwi enterprises need to change to attract Māori and Pasifika IT talent

Despite making up more than a quarter of NZ’s population, Māori and Pasifika peoples make up just 6.8% of New Zealand’s IT workforce.

With the tightening labour market for IT staff, there is a bigger push than ever for companies to examine what they can do to attract more people to the industry. Conversations on diversity amongst IT executives have picked up, says Gartner senior director, advisory Neha Kumar

“CIOs are losing critical talent so, they are trying to think beyond just making incremental changes to their talent strategies, they’re scrambling to sort of sharpen it and think of bold changes. And that’s where they’re starting to look at, seriously tapping into the diversity in terms of the talent pool,” Kumar says.

There are numerous reasons why so few Māori and Pasifika people pursue a career in tech but one of the main factors is the lack of representation, says Microsoft global co-chair of Indigenous Dan Walker (Ngāti Ruanui).

“If our parents and rangatahi [young people] do not see their aunties, uncles, cousins, etc., and wider whānau—or even some people that look like them—in IT, then they are less likely to think of tech as a viable option for their children or themselves. A lack of representation always results in a lack of trust. Likewise, from the schooling side, I have seen research that shows our Māori and Pasifika rangatahi are streamed into other opportunities outside of STEM curricula. It can sometimes be well-meaning support that creates a divergence in the early years which becomes exponential in the later years. The result is very few Māori and Pasifika studying for tech roles in the tertiary level, becoming self-perpetuating in the demand side,” Walker says.

If Māori and Pasifika people do consider a career in IT, Walker says they have to contend with barriers that others may not have to deal with.

Careers, Diversity and Inclusion