Last year, some 1.5m new jobs were created worldwide in cloud-related industries and over the next four years the number of cloud-related jobs could grow by more than 8.8m roles resulting in a total of 14m new jobs by 2015, IDC predicts.
A new cloud computing report commissioned by Microsoft predicts that spending on public cloud IT services in 2011 was US$28bn, compared with more than US$1.7bn on all IT products and services.
IDC estimates that last year alone IT cloud services helped organisations of all sizes and vertical sectors around the world generate US$400bn in revenue and generate 1.5m new jobs.
In the next four years the number of new jobs will surpass 8.8m.
IDC estimates that worldwide, 75pc of IT spending is tied up with the maintenance of legacy systems and routing upgrades.
Cloud computing will allow IT oganisations to shift some of that legacy work to the cloud, freeing up budgets to invest in IT innovation to support business innovation.
The IDC report projects that increase in business revenue from the IT innovation enabled by cloud could reach US$1.1trn by 2015.
IDC estimates that spending on public and private IT cloud service will generate nearly 14m jobs worldwide by 2015.
Benefiting from the cloud
More than half these jobs will be in small and medium-sized firms.
Sectors that stand to gain significantly from cloud computing include investment services, banking, insurance, professional services, communications and media, healthcare, education, manufacturing, retail, utilities and government.
China and India stand to be the biggest beneficiaries with 6.7m jobs created by the end of 2015, followed by Asia-Pacific with 2.8m jobs. EMEA countries stand to create 2m new jobs while 1.1m new jobs will be generated by cloud computing.
EMEA’s spending on public IT cloud services was 40pc of North America’s spend, but its investment in private cloud was equal to or more than that of North America.
