 |
|
| CURRENT SECTION :: News |
The No. 1 Resource for UK IT Contractors: Comprehensive guides - Daily news IT contract jobs - Market rates - Forums - IT contractor network - Calculators |
|
 |
Online job vacancies in Britain’s IT sector rose slightly to an eight-month high in October, indicating a further degree of stabilisation in the IT jobs market. The Monster Employment Index, a monthly count of millions of online job adverts, shows last month was the best month for IT workers since February. It represents the second comprehensive index of IT jobs obtained by CUK to spotlight October as an upward turning point in the hiring of both permanent and contract staff. But it is too early to conclude that the hiring trend has turned positive in IT, said Hugo Sellert, head of economic research at Monster Worldwide, responding to questions yesterday. Pointing to the index, he said the supply of new IT jobs has shrunk by 23 per cent compared with October last year, and by 45 per cent since its peak in February 2008. This “dramatic cooling” for IT staff, due to the recession, means that last month saw a bottoming out, but not a sustained growth, in the number of them being recruited online. In other words, online demand for IT workers is relatively flat, with actual job additions still some way off, thanks to vacancy levels being low and layoffs continuing, Mr Sellert said. However if economic indicators are right, and assuming optimism in the most recent business surveys is justified, IT workers who can quickly replace IT employees appear well-placed. Mr Sellert explained: “Labour turnover typically falls during economic downturns as employees perceive it more difficult to get another job, and therefore tend to stay in their current position “As signs of optimism return to the economy, more workers consider changing employment, thereby creating a higher need for replacements.” Less positively, “it could take some time” between a rise in IT hiring intentions, as some post-September surveys have shown, translating into new IT jobs being posted online. Mainly this is because IT “candidate availability is presumably very elevated” among the sector’s staffing firms, following extensive layoffs during the prolonged downturn. Data provided by TotalJobs.com confirms availability of IT candidates is high: during September, the website posted 15,000 IT jobs that attracted more than 148,000 applications. A year ago today, the number of people using the site to apply for IT jobs was about the same, but then there were almost three times the number of opportunities, whether they were permanent or contract. Nov 13, 2009 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All content © Contractor UK Limited | [Register for News Letter] | [Privacy Statement] | [Terms of Use] | [Top of Page] |