More IT jobs, less filling of them
Recruiters say rising demand for tech workers is making hiring harder
Computerworld - It should be easier to find an IT job nowadays, according to several recent reports on employment trends. But it may be getting harder to recruit people to fill job openings.
"The market is picking up," said Nate Viall, president of Nate Viall and Associates, a Des Moines, Iowa-based company that recruits IT workers for jobs involving IBM's System i server line. Viall said he can sense a change in hiring activity, but he added that some of IT staffers he has encountered are reluctant to switch jobs.
"People are cautious," said Viall. "They either got burned themselves at the beginning of the decade or know three friends that did."
On Monday, The Conference Board Inc. said that about 4.37 million online job advertisements were placed in April, a 24% increase from the same month a year ago (download PDF). Of that total, approximately 323,000 ads were in the "computer and mathematical" category, which is defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) as including such occupations as computer programmer and database administrator. The online ads placed in that category increased about 15% from the year-earlier month, the Conference Board reported.
Gad Levanon, an economist at the New York-based executive association and research organization, said companies typically do more advertising in the spring, particularly to attract the attention of students who are graduating from college. But the data showing year-over-year increases could be signaling an improvement in the job market, he added.
The increase in online advertising may also be an indication of a tight labor supply, such that companies "need to advertise more aggressively because the number of people looking for jobs is smaller," Levanon said.
Another indication of increased hiring came in Cyberstates 2007, the latest annual report on high-tech employment trends issued by the AeA, a Washington-based trade group that formerly was known as the American Electronics Association. The AeA's 148-page report, which was released April 24, said that high-tech jobs in the U.S. totaled 5.8 million last year -- up by 3%, or 146,600 jobs. In 2005, tech employment grew by only about 1%, according to the AeA.
Last December, Robert Half Technology said its quarterly survey of more than 1,400 CIOs showed that 16% planned to hire additional IT staffers during this year's first quarter, while 2% planned to make cutbacks. The net of 14% was the highest that the Menlo Park, Calif.-based recruiting firm had seen since the fourth quarter of 2001.
The firm reported in March that 14% of the respondents to its latest survey said they planned to add IT workers during the current quarter, with 2% again planning reductions. "It's harder to fill jobs because the demand is so great," said Brian Gabrielson, a vice president at Robert Half Technology.



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- Measuring up: A Global Benchmark Defining IT Asset and Service Management
- Find out how your IT department's IT asset and services management strategy compares to that of your peers by using this unique tool....
- Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
- As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
- Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
- Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
- Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware
- Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...
- Streamline Compliance and Increase ROI
- Streamline, simplify, and automate compliance related activities; especially those that impact multiple business units. This white paper from NetIQ, outlines solutions that will... All Staff Management White Papers
- Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
- Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
- Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
- Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn...
- Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence
- Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere®... All Staff Management Webcasts