Tech staffers are suddenly facing a grim hiring outlook after several years of boom times, according to the latest survey of I.T. hiring and salaries by Janco Associates Inc., a consulting company that focuses on information management. In fact, Janco reports that hiring demand is the lowest it has been in the 15 years it has conducted the survey.
Not surprisingly, salaries have taken a dip as well. The mean salary in January versus January a year ago was down 1.2% for management information executives at large enterprises ($142,914 versus $144,645) and 4.4% for executives at medium-sized enterprises ($126,031 versus $131,793). For all I.T. staff, the mean salary is down 2% from a year ago ($77,367 versus $79,005).
The outlook will probably not get better soon, Janco says. “Supply of I.T. professionals is at a very high level due to lay-offs, deferred retirements, and individuals trying to re-enter the I.T. job market because they cannot find other jobs or have found they cannot stay retired with the decrease in value of their retirement accounts,” the report concludes.
CEO Victor Janulaitis paints a grim picture of current job market trends. “The job market for I.T. professionals is one of the worst that I have seen since the late 1970s,” he says. “There is a surplus of I.T. talent and companies are in a cost-cutting mode. The dot-com bubble was a cakewalk compared to this job market.”
If one is a manager of Internet systems, his prospects of keeping a job or finding a new one are better at a medium-sized enterprise than at a large enterprise, Janco says. That job is characterized as among the “positions with decreased demand, high lay-off potential, high outsourcing potential” with large companies, yet just the opposite with mid-sized enterprises.
“With the Internet, large enterprises are in maintenance mode,” Janulaitis says. “Smaller and mid-sized companies are trying to figure out how to get additional sales, so many of them are turning to the Internet.”
The following jobs have increased demand, low lay-off potential and low outsourcing potential:
Large employers:
- Chief information officer – vice president
- Computer operations shift manager
- Network control analyst
- Network services administrator
- Systems analyst
- Systems programmer
Mid-sized employers:
- Manager database
- Manager Internet systems
- Database specialist
- Network control analyst
- Librarian (PCI-DSS Specialist)
The following jobs have decreased demand, high lay-off potential and high outsourcing potential:
Large employers:
- Vice president – technical services
- Director I.T. planning
- Manager Internet systems
- Manager operating system production
- Manager systems & programming
- Manager technical services
- Voice wireless communications manager
- Data entry clerk
- Database specialist
- I.T. planning analyst
- Senior network specialist
Mid-sized employers:
- Director I.T. planning
- Manager data communications
- Manager operating systems production
- Manager technical services
- Disaster recovery coordinator
- Network services administrator
- Network technician
- Software engineer
- Web analyst
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