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Demand for temporary IT staff increased last month to its highest level since the early days of the global financial crisis in April 2008, according to data obtained by CUK. Economists at Markit, which takes the pulse of Recruitment and Employment Confederation agencies, said October was contract IT staff’s best month in 18 months. According to the firm’s index, which scores IT contractor demand at 53.8, demand for permanent IT staff also peaked last month at 51.5, representing a 17-month high. Scores are derived on a level that 50.0 signals ‘no-change’ since the previous month, with above 50 denoting an improvement and below 50 signalling a deterioration. It seems, then, that the IT sector is currently benefiting from a “broad-based stabilisation” of demand across the labour market, said Markit’s economist Jack Kennedy. Asked to explain the upturn in IT staff hiring, he pointed to REC agencies reporting recent shortages of software developers, CNC programmers, Sharepoint and .NET specialists. There also appears to be a growing willingness to take all types of technical projects off the backburner, as the index shows a revival in demand for both full-time and contract engineers. Seeming to confirm the upturn in contract hires, the REC last week said that growth of temporary staff appointments in the service sectors climbed to a sixteen-month high in October. Across the five sectors, including IT, the increase in contract staff availability was the least marked in fifteen months, and pay rates, although still falling, dropped at the slowest rate in a year. Nov 9, 2009 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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