The information technology job market has screeched to a halt as companies deal with global economic uncertainties, and that pulled down salary growth for North American IT jobs to 1.39% in the past 12 months versus 3% the prior year, a new salary survey says.

“We started out 2015 very optimistically, but as the year progressed, chief information officers started to pull back with the economic and political climate and the turmoil in the United States and overseas,” says Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, a management consulting firm that focuses on information technology and compiles the data. “The net effect is a downward pressure on demand for IT professionals, which puts downward pressure on salary increases.”

Don’t look for improvements this year, at least not until after the presidential election in November, Janulaitis says.

Executives in midsized company IT departments and middle managers in large company IT departments fared the best, the survey shows. The midmarket executives’ total mean compensation increased 2.08% to $130,916 from $128,246, while large-company middle managers saw a mean increase of 2.06% to $84,030 from $82,332, the survey shows.

Other findings:

• Between January 2015 and January 2016 the total mean compensation for all IT professionals increased 1.39% to $82,483 from $81,355. 
• In large enterprises, the median compensation rose 1.48% to $85,110 from $83,872.
• In midsized enterprises, the mean total compensation for all positions increased by 1.29% to $79,856 from $78,838.   
• Staff-level IT positions have seen little pay fluctuation over the past eight years.
• In 2015, 125,700 IT jobs were created in the United States, which is 3,700 fewer than the 129,400 created in 2014. The IT workforce in the United States is 3.3 million.
• Of IT jobs growing in size, the top category in 2015, with a gain of 91,000 jobs, was computer system design. Employees in that category do such things as design order processing systems and provide support for a company’s customer relationship management system.

The survey covers 200 large companies that each have more than $250 million a year in revenue and 400 midsized companies with $50 million to $250 million in annual revenue. Executive-level jobs include the chief information officer and top managers; middle managers include project managers, applications development managers and others with 15-20 employees who report to them; and staff jobs include those without management responsibility, such as programmers.