A new Whitepaper from IDC sponsored by the Cisco Learning Institute shows a shortage of network professionals could be here as early as 2011.

According to the report, “Networking Skills in North America: Trends, Gaps and Strategies,” about 600,000 IT pros worked on networks in 2007. That will grow about 30% to about 780,000 workers by 2011. But there are more jobs than skilled workers to fill them. About 10% of open networking positions remain unfilled for more than six months.

“This Whitepaper confirms what many managers of the workforce are already keenly aware of: There is an acute and growing need for more IT professionals,” said Cushing Anderson, IDC analyst. “With more and more businesses moving critical operational functions over to the network, the IT department is assuming a much more strategic role in the organization and needs its infrastructure to be designed, implemented and maintained by highly skilled, highly trained individuals.”

The changing nature of the network and its greater importance in the enterprise lead to increased demand for skills such as security, telephony, wireless, messaging and videoconferencing. Cisco reports that IT leaders can mitigate the skills gap in a few ways:

* Share job roles and tasks between multiple workers. Decentralized job roles help reduce the impact of unfilled positions.

* Make up for lack of experience by seeking certification in a relevant technology. Nearly three-fourths of those polled believe certifications improve the credibility and reflect the capability of a candidate. As you likely know, Cisco offers an extensive certification program.

* Accelerate outsourcing.

Amy Schurr is the former managing features editor of Network World.