Job vacancies in IT soar

By Jennifer Foreshew

The technology employment market charged ahead in May, with online positions vacant jumping 5.92 per cent, seasonally adjusted, a survey shows.

Recruiters reported strong growth last month despite international economic uncertainty and a volatile sharemarket.

The Advantage Job Index, formerly the Olivier Job Index, found IT&T roles were up 32.67 per cent on a year ago. The overall index climbed 5.47 per cent in May, following a jittery April market, which rose 1.74 per cent.

The technology sector is now averaging 20,988 IT&T positions vacant per week, compared with 15,820 in May last year.

“There is no doubting the significance of the Greek situation and other European countries’ debt problems, but the likely impact on the Australian economy is not great,” said Advantage Resourcing global market intelligence director Robert Olivier.

In May, internet graphics and multimedia vacancies surged 12.6 per cent, database development and administration roles were up 11.9 per cent and system administration and support roles jumped 11 per cent. Software development and engineering vacancies have increased by 7.3 per cent.

The weakest job category was management and sales, which was up 1.7 per cent.

Hays IT regional director Peter Noblet said the company had experienced a 30 per cent-plus increase in IT hiring in May.

“Some big corporations are spending quite significant amounts of their budgets on improving their systems, but also through mergers and acquisitions that have happened,” he said.

According to the recent Hays Salary Guide, involving 1800 employers, 36 per cent of employers in the IT&T industry expect to increase salaries by between 3 and 6 per cent in the coming year, and 7 per cent expect a rise of above 6 per cent.

More than a third of employers expect to increase their permanent staff levels in their IT department, and a quarter will boost their use of contract staff for IT work.

The most in-demand roles include project managers, program managers, business analysts and change managers.

“In certain industries, like the banking and finance space, we are hearing that there is a lot of confidence returning to Hong Kong and Singapore and that is going to affect hiring in Australia,” he said.

Paxus Victorian state manager Jason Trevethick said that nationally hiring was up by about 90 per cent, compared with the same time last year.

“We are getting very close to levels that we saw back in 2007 before the global financial crisis,” Mr Trevethick said.

Both NSW and Victoria have had big swings on the permanent front and Queensland and Victoria have had strong growth in contracting.

Mr Trevethick said that, on a national level, contracting had doubled compared with the same time last year.

Article from The Australian, June 8, 2010.