RFID talent still in short supply?

What's the biggest obstacle to the rapid adoption of RFID technology? No, it's not price, technological glitches or even complex integration issues. It's something much more mundane: a shortage of workers with RFID expertise.

A new study conducted by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) and released at RFID World in Dallas last month showed that 75 percent of the respondents did not believe the RFID talent pool was deep enough to meet their hiring needs. And although that figure is down slightly from 80 percent in a similar survey conducted in 2005, it's still a clear-cut majority.

Among those respondents who believe there's a shortage of RFID expertise, 80 percent say that shortfall will hamper the adoption of RFID technology. That figure is significantly higher than the 53 percent who felt that way last year.

The CompTIA survey results did contain one bit of good news. Though the respondents identified RFID training and education as a major challenge, only 50 percent categorized it as their primary roadblock to RFID adoption—down from two-thirds of the respondents to last year's survey.