On November 1, 2019 CNBC’s Nightly Business Report featured the growing need for qualified cybersecurity workers in their “Help Wanted” segment. The (ISC)² Cybersecurity Workforce Study, 2019 served as the foundation of this story, which pointed to the newly reported shortage of 4 million trained cybersecurity professionals worldwide.

Cybersecurity analyst Mandi Ingersoll of TDI Security, a cybersecurity firm in Washington, D.C., began her career in cybersecurity in the U.S. Navy. She chose to stay in the field after retiring from military service. “It’s interesting because it’s always something new.”

TDI’s CEO, Paul Innella, CISSP-ISSMP says the firm has had trouble hiring qualified workers. TDI offers competitive pay, stipends for certification training, benefits and bonuses, but the competition for talent is so fierce that he’s learned the term “ghosting” from candidates who stop communicating, even after they’ve been hired.

As the (ISC)² Workforce Study also revealed, there are currently more than 2.8 million workers around the world, but that number would need to increase by 145% in order to fully fill the “gap” experienced by many organizations.

“We need to have skilled people right now that can do the work,” said (ISC)² CEO, David Shearer, CISSP. “But we also need to be building that cadre of the next wave of people coming in to replace those that’ll be retiring in the not-too-distant future.”