There have been quite a few articles in the last 45 days written on the increase in pay and the number of available jobs for IT workers.
InformationWeek cites the Labor Department in June showing an increase in jobs created over the same period of 2004. The article states that some companies are still jittery about hiring so are doing more to retain their current employees including salary increases.
No large hiring increases are predicted but a continuation in moderate hiring is. A recent Foote Partners study has been mentioned in a few of these articles including CRM Buyer, SearchSAP.com, Computerworld, and NetworkWorld.
Foote Partners notes that offshoring is playing less of a role in pay and the number of jobs. They have found that many companies have not managed offshoring well and as a consequence are staffing more internally. Also, offshore salaries are increasing raising the overall cost of development.
A perspective from across the pond, read that as the UK, on the greater need of IT staff with business skills not just technical skills. The Silicon.com article suggests that it is time for the IT industry to “grow up” and start thinking about career paths and that many workers view IT as a job and not a career.
Datamation has this article on some of those in IT that have been left behind in the recovery of jobs and pay. While I am sure there are many stories such as those in the article there are more good ones than bad.
Scot Melland of Dice.com states job posting have increased 180% from July 2003 and that IT unemployment is at 3.7%, much lower than the 5.0% overall average.
That being said we are 20% lower in IT jobs from 2000. While that is a significant decrease 2000 was the height of the Internet bubble and it was unsustainable.
There is still a lot of contradictory information in these studies. Yes IT hiring is moving in a positive direction and salaries are increasing and no it is not like it used to be. I am reminded that the way it used to be, 1996-2000, was an anomaly and not at all consistent with historical patterns.
Hopefully we are back to normal growth and hiring patterns.
