Contract IT jobs buck US slowdown

US technology staff are beginning to feel the pinch from their home-grown credit crunch, as corporations strive to trim the excess fat from IT departments.



Just four months ago, the consensus about most of the nation's IT staff was that their industry had stood firm, as only fiscally-exposed sectors cut jobs and pay.



But official labour figures now show America's IT industry lost 13,000 jobs in July, representing a total loss of 44,000 IT jobs in the past 12 months.



Figures from the US Department of Labour's Bureau of Statistics (BS) also reveal that in the same one-month period, the telecommunications industry lost 5,000 jobs.



A salary survey from Janco, a Utah-based IT recruiter, appeared to confirm the crash, finding that IT hiring slumped in June this year to its lowest level since 2004.



The firm said discretionary IT spending had slowed or stopped, resulting in fewer project starts, leading to the intake of consultants being cut, "if not eliminated."



Pay for general IT staff suffered accordingly, given that the slight overall increase in average salaries, notably for senior security staff, fell below the rising cost of living.



The agency added that last year's sought-after jobs, such as Web 2.0 roles, had returned to normal demand, while administration roles, in contrast, were now regarded as "expendable."



Appearing to form a consensus that IT staff were being hit, a recently reported survey from Goldman Sachs found that a rising number of managers were considering cutting IT roles.



However, the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses, which tracks contract as well as permanent IT hires, yesterday told CUK that it had seen no annual decline in contract IT jobs.



Chief executive Mark Roberts said that while there had been a softening of demand, IT employment, including non-permanent roles, was up on last year.



He said that although the gain in IT jobs was modest last month, up by just 2,800 roles, IT employment for the 12 months to July 2008 rose by 251,000 positions, a 6.7% increase on 2007.



"By looking at how the public firms are doing, you can get a sense of the trajectory of IT services," Mr Roberts said. "While they are not growing like they were last year, there has been no precipitous fall off either."



Supporting this analysis that pockets of IT jobs remain unaffected, the BS figures show that computer system design and related services added 7,000 jobs in July.



Janco also reported that enterprises had continued hiring "key replacements", with demand at large enterprises having increased for information officers, systems and programming directors, as well as data warehouse and wireless communications managers.



In medium-sized enterprises, demand had also risen for senior consulting services, systems project managers; network administrators and technicians, software engineers and systems programmers.



But the firm predicted the cost-cutting approach to IT resources would be felt directly by assistant or level 2 staff, and other techies neither considered trainees nor talented.



"As we collected compensation data for our mid-year 2008 IT salary survey we found that at the end of the first quarter businesses turned off the faucet for IT spending," said Victor Janulaitis, Janco's CEO.



"Many businesses, in response to economic projections, slowed down and halted discretionary spending for software and hardware as well as placed hiring requisitions on a slow track."