Bermuda has measures in place to enable it to compete against other countries looking to secure rare, highly-skilled information technology (IT) workers, Telecommunications and E-Commerce Minister Renee Webb said this week.

Ms Webb was speaking after a recent article in the daily world business newspaper Financial Times highlighted the global shortage of IT workers and the steps being taken by other countries to snare those available.

The UK recently relaxed work permit rules for overseas specialists and a bill to double the US limit on visas for non-immigrants educated up to bachelor degree level or higher is currently before that country's House of Representatives.

And Germany has announced plans to grant work and residency permits to up to 20,000 specialist IT workers from outside Europe in a bid to overcome short-term vacancies.

Ms Webb told The Royal Gazette that her Ministry and the Ministry of Immigration have a consultative process in place to handle work permits for information technology and e-commerce jobs promptly.

"We are aware of the problem and Immigration is aware,'' she said.

"If the Department of Immigration has a work permit for e-commerce or information technology before it, a consultative process takes place. We try to facilitate and speed up the process.

"We facilitate people getting through the immigration process as expeditiously as possible so we do not lose them to somewhere else.'' The Minister noted that Government wanted to attract e-commerce to the Island and assist Bermuda's development as an e-commerce hub.

"We do not want to have barriers to entry,'' she stressed.

The consultative process had been in place for some time, continued Ms Webb, and had developed to a point where it was enacted when companies looking to set up on-Island first approached Government.

These discussions also involved the Ministry of Finance and, on occasion, Premier Jennifer Smith, she noted.

Because of the process, the companies can tell Government what their objectives are, what their labour requirements are and who their key people are.

At the same time, programmes can be identified by both sides which would bring IT-savvy locals up to a skill level to enable them to fill some of the new jobs being created.

It was exactly this sort of consultative effort that took place when Concert Limited -- a telecommunication company created in a joint venture between BT and AT&T -- approached Government about setting up operations on the Island, noted Ms Webb.

The Financial Times article quoted Information Technology Association of America president Harris Miller warning: "Running out of IT workers today is like running out of iron ore in the industrial revolution.'' It noted: "The number of unfilled technology posts is predicted to rise to more than 300,000 in the UK and to 1.7 million across Europe by 2003.'' The US Immigration and Naturalisation Service has reported that US technology groups have already used up their yearly quota of 115,0000 visas for skilled foreign workers in the fiscal year 2000 -- the earliest a cap on the visas has ever been reached.

A US bipartisan bill that would double the number of these visas is before the House of Representatives.

And in Germany many of the 75,000 available information technology jobs are vacant.

Renee Webb