IT worker demand falls to a new low for 2011

Demand from recruiters for contract IT workers sunk in June for the third month in a row and to its weakest level so far this year, a survey of 400 jobs agencies shows.

In its latest Report on Jobs, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation scored IT contractor demand at 57.9, up on last June (56.9), yet lower than any other month of 2011.

Permanent IT roles were also harder to come by – though on both a monthly and yearly basis, meaning that, unlike contractors, prospects for full-time IT candidates are gloomier than they were in June 2010.

But seeming to unify all computer job hopefuls, the REC agents that place both types of candidate found IT to be the second healthiest out of six other sectors, with only Engineering being more buoyant.

And whether full-time or contract, candidates are also contending with the same pressures, which first surfaced in the REC’s May report, before showing up this week in the latest billings of Computer People.

Speaking on Tuesday, the IT jobs agency said client-side hiring managers of temporary and permanent IT workers were looking for “ways to tighten their belts.”

In the REC’s report yesterday, the head of business services at KMPG, Bernard Brown, confirmed: “Employers across all sectors are very cautious about hiring new staff”.

In fact, most private sector outfits are “increasingly focussed on keeping their cost base low,” he said, partly explaining why average salary and rate growth is still slowing.

The growing availability of full-time and contract candidates, as the REC also found in June, provides grounds for hirers to maintain their approach of not being dictated to on pay.

Yet there may be some exceptions: the agents said hirers are struggling to find .Net, PHP and SAP for full-time roles, and Oracle for contract jobs. Business Analysts were scarce on both a permanent and contract basis.