Cloud-based services will create 14 million new jobs by 2015, a recent study commissioned by Microsoft in collaboration with the research firm IDC predicts.
Though half of those jobs will be in China and India due to the sheer size of their populations and the potential for cheaper labor, over 1.2 million jobs will be created in the US and Canada.
Roughly 75 percent of current IT spending is set aside for maintaining data systems, the study estimates. As these systems disappear form the mainstream as businesses choose more cloud solutions for more effective affordability, companies will save this money and invariably hire more workers to develop more innovative cloud services, creating a self-perpetuating cycle. The study estimates that the international switch to the cloud could generate around $1.1 trillion in revenue.
Granted, Microsoft had its own incentives in this study as it stands to gain a lot from its cloud services, but so do companies such as Apple, Box, and Dropbox, offering not only enterprise solutions but consumer services that could potentially involve every household.
The US, however, stands to be more of a consumer of apps than a creator of jobs in the cloud, with US consumers accounting for 62 percent the money spent on cloud services in 2011 but likely only accounting for 7 percent of cloud jobs by 2015. Still, the 1.09 million jobs the country stands to gain will provide much needed relief as the nation continues to dig itself out of recession.
“A common misperception is cloud computing is a job eliminator, but in truth it will be a job creator — a major one,” states the study’s author John Gantz. “And job growth will occur across continents and throughout organizations of all sizes because emerging markets, small cities and small businesses have the same access to cloud benefits as large enterprises or developed nations.”