AWS Cloud Upskilling Challenge working with Venturenix Lab

The world is going digital — from the way we work, to the way we live. We are seeing information technology drive significant transformation across the world at the individual, organization, and macroeconomic level.

To study these dynamics in a global context, Gallup partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to conduct the largest international survey to date on digital skills. The term “digital skills” refers to the ability to effectively use digital devices, communication applications, and electronic information networks to perform work.

Gallup surveyed just over 30,000 workers with access to the internet in Hong Kong and 18 other major countries that account for 67% of the total value that jobs requiring advanced digital skills add to the global economy. It also surveyed more than 9,000 employers in these countries.[1] Additionally, to assess the skills most needed by today’s employers, Gallup analyzed Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass) data on all advertised job vacancies in 33 countries, including Hong Kong, from June 2021 to May 2022 to further assess demand for digital skills and how much employers are willing to pay for them.

Research data consistently show that digital skills are providing immense economic value to Hong Kong’s businesses and workers, raising gross domestic product (GDP), revenue growth, innovation, wages, job security, and job satisfaction — for both the organizations that integrate these skills and related technologies, and for the workers who master them.

Top Five Takeaways:

Rising Tides: Digital Fluency Yields Massive Economic Benefits

Advanced digital skills generate significant income and revenue premiums for workers and industry. These premiums quickly add up, creating major national and global value.

• GDP growth[2]: Advanced digital skills raise Hong Kong’s GDP by an estimated USD $5.4 billion (HKD $32.7 billion) each year, and global GDP by an estimated USD $6.3 trillion (HKD $38.2 trillion) each year, by boosting workers’ income and productivity. Digital workers of all skill levels in Hong Kong increase their country's GDP by $47.5 billion ($287.9 billion HKD).
  
  
• Premium salaries: The average worker in Hong Kong with advanced digital skills earns 58% more than similar workers who do not use digital skills. This translates into individual gains of USD $19,699 (HKD $119,376).

Digitally Skilled Workers in Hong Kong Boast Higher Job Satisfaction and Efficiency

Digital skill mastery is also linked to significant gains in employee job satisfaction. Likewise, such workers are far less likely than non-digital peers to experience concerns related to job security. For nearly all workers who have recently undergone digital training in Hong Kong, these benefits are not theoretical; among the 35% of workers in Hong Kong who completed digital skills training in the past year, 99% say their career has experienced at least one positive benefit as a result.

• Job satisfaction: Half (50%) of workers in Hong Kong with advanced digital skills express high job satisfaction, compared with 26% of workers with basic digital skills and 36% of workers with intermediate digital skills.

• Job security: More than half (52%) of advanced digital workers in Hong Kong report their current job is secure, compared with 38% of basic and intermediate digital workers.

• Higher productivity: Sixty percent of workers in Hong Kong say digital skills training has made them more efficient in their work, 44% believe it made them more employable, and 43% say it improved their opportunities to be promoted.

Digital Skills Investment Delivers Business Dividends: Organizations With Digitally Skilled Workforces Significantly Outperform Non-Digital Peers

Businesses that integrate advanced digital skills, digital technologies, and cloud technology realize rates of revenue growth and innovation that are notably higher than those of companies that do not leverage these technologies.

• Increased revenue growth: Forty percent of organizations in Hong Kong that employ workers with advanced digital skills report steady annual revenue growth (10%+) in the past year, compared with 33% of organizations that only employ workers with basic or intermediate digital skills.

• Enhanced innovation: Sixty-five percent of advanced digital organizations in Hong Kong introduced new, innovative products in the last two years, compared with 51% of their less-digital counterparts.

• Cloud computing’s silver lining: Companies in Hong Kong running most of their business on the cloud boast innovation rates 35 percentage points higher than companies that use the cloud for some of its business or do not use it at all (84% vs. 49%) and were 27 percentage points more likely to experience steady revenue growth (57% vs. 30%).
• Remote work: Seventy-three percent of employers in Hong Kong feel their employees need more training in digital skills in order to work remotely, but just 18% of companies have already started investing in additional training for their employees in order to provide them those skills.

Barriers to Digital Training Are Nearly as Pervasive as Interest in Acquiring It

Most workers in Hong Kong want to develop their digital skills, but something is getting in the way.

• Ninety-three percent of workers in Hong Kong who are very interested in additional training say they face at least one barrier to acquiring that training.

• Fifty-one percent of interested workers cite a lack of time as an impediment, followed by a lack of financial resources (46%) and knowledge of the skills and training needed to advance in their careers (35%).

• Digital employees are eager to learn: Seventy percent of digital workers in Hong Kong are “extremely interested” or “very interested” in obtaining training in at least one of 26 digital skills offered. On average, workers in Hong Kong are interested in training for 7 skills.[3]

“Please indicate your interest in obtaining training in each of the following digital skills within the next two years.”

[1] Results for Hong Kong are based on responses from 1,298 workers and 356 employers.

[2] To determine the magnitude of these effects on national GDP, Gallup first calculated the additional income basic, intermediate and advanced digital workers earn over workers who do not use any digital skills in the same country. Then, Gallup scaled those individual gains across the total number of workers in each country that use each level of digital skills, plus the estimated revenue they generate for their employers. To adjust income to 2022 USD, researchers started with 2017 Purchasing Power Parity indexes from the World Bank International Comparisons Program, then projected 2017 PPPs to June of 2022 using national consumer price growth indexes from 2017 to June 2022. These data were obtained from the U.S. BLS, OECD Stats and national data sources. Please see the APAC Global Digital Skills Report for a more detailed explanation of GDP calculations.

[3] Gallup asked digital workers in each country in the study to indicate their level of interest in training in 26 digital skills: Animation and Game Design, Application Development, Security, Interface, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Cloud-based tools (e.g., file-sharing services, messaging applications like Slack, cloud-based CRM tools), Data Mining, Internet of Things, Digital software (e.g., word processing software, slides, spreadsheets, etc.), Network Configuration; General Networking, Graphic and Visual Design, Online Marketing, Robotics, Software Development Principles, Technical Support, Web Development, System Design and Implementation, SQL Databases and Programming, Enterprise Resource Planning, Database Administration, JavaScript and jQuery, Cybersecurity, Operating Systems, Scripting Languages, Software Quality Assurance, Java. Workers who said they were “extremely interested” or “very interested” in a skill were categorized as interested.

[i] Notes: Individual gains in column 3 are estimated in percentage terms from country-level regressions of the log of annual income on digital skill level, adjusting for age, gender, education, country-region, immigration status, work hours, and self-employment status. Dollar values in column 2 are estimated by multiplying the percentage gains by mean average wage, using country level sources outside the survey to avoid projecting sample bias, and the number of workers. Job vacancy premium adjusted for advertised education level and years of experience, and total number of advertised skills. Advanced skills are defined as job postings listing 10 or more digital skills. Total results are weighted by national employment or advertisements. The GDP effect is aggregated from the individual survey-based effect using total employment estimates and the share of workers with advanced skills, and this is divided by the labor share of national income. The data source for employment is Gallup World Poll; the source for job vacancies is Burning Glass, and the source for labor share of income is PWT 10.0 Feenstra, Robert C., Robert Inklaar and Marcel P. Timmer (2015), "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table" American Economic Review, 105(10), 3150-3182, available for download at www.ggdc.net/pwt.

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Step 1: Register for the Challenge

• Complete the registration form
• If you are participating as a team, input the team name. Please note the team name must be exactly the same for each member for our system to recognize you as a group.
• The AWS Cloud Upskilling Challenge is only available to customers in Hong Kong

Step 2: Attend events and earn digital badges

• After registering, you will receive our resources and next steps to complete the challenge. Keep an eye out for our emails.
• Be sure to actively engage with the content to get the most out of each event
• Earn digital badges and recognitions for attending AWS events that can be shared on social media to showcase your achievements to industry peers.

Step 3: Get certified and celebrate!

• Upon completing the AWS Cloud Upskilling Challenge, get ready to become AWS Certified and advance your career. Unlock new opportunities for career growth and advancement!

Fill out the form to register for the challenge now! You will receive your AWS Upskilling Challenge resources and start your learning journey today! 

What is the AWS Cloud Upskilling Challenge?

The AWS Cloud Upskilling Challenge is an engaging, no-cost, gamified skilling initiative that grants you access to AWS upskilling resources tailored to your specific solution area! With this program, you can challenge yourself to upskill through our AWS learn paths, training, events and resources and unlock different milestones.

Through gamified experiences, you can earn digital badges and recognitions for attending AWS events, demonstrating proficiency in specific solutions areas. These badges can be shared on social media and displayed on your professional profile to showcase your achievements to industry peers.

Learn more on the AWS Digital Skills Hub »