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By Sara Jameson
Recent U.S. jobs reports were bleak at best driving down the hopes of a robust jobs recovery in the coming months. The job market for IT professionals mirrors this recent downturn. The number of IT jobs added in May was much lower than expected, according to recent research from management consulting firm Janco. In the short term as is typical during times of economic uncertainty, senior IT managers are looking to IT contractors to support projects rather than hiring into full-time employment positions.
Many CIOs surveyed will address current project needs with temporary consultants. "There had been some hope that the job market had turned the corner and that confidence was going to be high," says Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco. "That is not the case. Companies continue to pull back, with announced staff reductions at HP and several other companies."
The research from Janco has found that the domestic market for IT Professionals is weak at best. IT reflects the malaise of the US economy and added only 200 IT jobs in April while the total job market increased by only 69,000 in May versus the 115,000 added in April. In addition, the number of individuals leaving the job market continues to remain at a very low participation rate of 63.8% -- the lowest it has been since 1980.
In California the overall unemployment rate is 10.9% and Nevada tops that with an unemployment rate of 11.7%. Janco has found that national unemployment rates have a direct impact on the confidence and ability of CIOs to implement new initiatives and expand their staffs.
In the continuing survey of CIOs hiring trends the research shows that CIOs are not as optimistic as they were earlier this year. Many of the CIOs interviewed do not feel that overall hiring will improve significantly until sometime in 2013. The CEO of Janco, Victor Janulaitis said, “In telephone interviews in late May of 107 US based CIOs we found that most have some short term needs that are of a ‘temporary’ nature. CIOs are continuing to keep the overall FTE (full time equivalent) headcounts level and do not see any increase in permanent staffing within the next several months.”
He added, “One in five CIO’s are looking to hire lower level staff within the next 3 months to fill short term needs. Many are looking for contractors and consultants with particular sets of skills to meet the demands of mobile computing. In addition some of these same CIO are looking towards implementation process to allow users to use their own personal devices – BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) – to minimize capital expenditures and improve ROI.”
Some Key Highlights from the survey are:
1. Overall IT compensation has remained flat for the last 12 months. The total mean compensation for all IT Professionals has increased modestly by 0.81% to $78,229 from $77,604 at the beginning of 2011. This puts overall compensation back at the levels they were at in January 2008.
2. All levels of IT professionals continue to feel a salary crunch.
3. There is an increased demand for IT executives in mid-sized companies as those firms begin to re-tool as the recession comes to an end.
4. Mid-sized enterprises are now starting to hire programmers, mid level infrastructure managers and supervisors as well as staff workers with salaries in this sector increasing slightly – Mean compensation is up less than 1% since June of 2011.
5. More enterprises are now shifting IT and a data center operation in-house which has resulted in an increase demand for data center managers.
6. Mandated requirements for records management systems and electronic medical records have increased the demand for custodians (librarians) of mechanized records.
7. IT hiring is up since January of 2011 – 33,100 IT jobs have been added in the United States according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
8. Layoffs seem to have tapered off, however some companies continue to cut the size of the IT organizations.
9. On shore outsourcing has peaked and companies are looking to bring IT operations back into their direct control and reduce operating costs.
10. Flexible hours and work schedules are becoming more available as the recovery begins to take hold and is viewed as a low cost high value benefit by both employers and employees.
Published by myITview.com
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