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The number of jobs offered to financial IT contractors leapt in March by 100%, defying the general downturn in freelance IT jobs for the third month in a row. Financial staff screener Powerchex said that, while IT contractors were the first to go in late 2008, their supply of work has grown steadily since December, when it fell by 75%. Since the decline, the biggest monthly fall the firm saw in 2008, offers for financial IT contractors got a seasonal boost in January and February of 30% and 11% respectively. Seeming to go beyond this annual replenishing of IT ranks, seen at the start of the year or before their next financial year begins, some financers used March to “gear up for a recovery.” Although March saw sector-wide job cuts, new offers for IT contractors rose 100% month-on-month, “the strongest sign yet” that IT recruiters in finance “are through the worst of it.” Explaining her firm’s findings, Powerchex’s Alexandra Kelly said IT contractor job offers had risen by financers deciding to return to development work, which many shelved in a "panic" to cut costs late last year. She also told CUK that IT contract offers climbed further thanks to the Financial Services Authority requiring IT systems to be developed, in compliance with its stream of new regulations. But supporting research reveals the pace at which financial services is hiring staff has doubled, mainly due to companies having to sift through a larger number of applicants. The average time taken to hire a temporary worker within the sector is nine days, up from six days before Lehman Brothers collapsed in September, according to agents at Joslin Rowe. “Tracking the time to hire of temporary staff is an excellent temperature gauge,” the firm said. “If temporary recruiting speeds up it's a strong indication the market is on the turn.” Compliance, risk and audit roles were said to be least affected, as were jobs for compensation and benefit analysts, mainly for still being in demand, the recruiter said. Outside of financial services, contract IT skills in demand were listed in the latest e-skills bulletin as WAP, COM, Sage, Pascal, Ingress, Systems Design and Systems Development. “It would seem prudent, if you are in work, to bed down and make the most of what you’ve got, particularly in the contract market,” the IT Sector Skills Council said. “After all, job openings are comparatively few and far between at the moment, and whilst advertised salaries [/rates] have fallen in each of the five past quarters, actual awards to those in work have at least shown an increase over the past two.” According to e-skills, openings for IT contractors fell 27% (23,000) in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared to the previous quarter, with freelance programmers hit the hardest. Average advertised pay for IT contractors felt the effects of a more crowded market, the bulletin shows, and fell 2% over the quarter, compared with a 1% drop in permanent salaries. Signalling more pressure on pay is incoming, a survey of British Chambers of Commerce companies shows more than two-thirds plan to freeze or cut their workers' wages. Half of the 400 companies surveyed said worse was to come, as they were considering making job cuts this year, or had already planned a programme to make redundancies. Asked why they used flexible arrangements to hire temporary staff, such as freelancers, more than 70% said they allowed them to adjust the size of their workforce as demand fluctuated. Apr 28, 2009 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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