As 2011 kicks off, industry watchers speculate which skills will help land IT jobs and if companies are putting budget dollars toward U.S. personnel.
Talk of a jobless economic recovery dominates financial news reports, but IT industry watchers say the high-tech sector could see a quicker return to hiring than most as demand for specific skills grows and fewer companies report reducing headcount.
IT New Year’s Resolution: A Return to High-Tech Hiring
Dice this week released its January 2011 report, which detailed the skills most in demand in the IT industry. Basing its data on the number and types of job postings available, Dice determines what types of technical expertise are most in demand. According to the career Web site, skills requests had to appear in at least 1,000 job postings to qualify for analysis in this report.
A surprise to no one, cloud computing was listed among 1,300 job postings, representing a nearly 300% jump in demand for such skills. Dice associates the boom in cloud-related applications to also be contributing to demand for JavaScript expertise, which has 7,919 listings (a 98% increase) and HTML, which was requested in 8,547 postings (an 85% increase).
Another expected set of skills in demand is around information security, with 1,680 available jobs listed on Dice now – a 109% increase.
Virtualization is also seeing an uptick in interest with some 2,100 related positions posted, representing a 92% increase in demand.
The most recent report also shows that the IT best practice framework ITIL is among the most sought-after skills of the moment.
“Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) uses have jumped 89% year over year to 1,619 job postings. This widely accepted set of best practices for IT management is routinely in the top paying tech skills,” the January report reads.
Other skills in demand include SAP expertise, with 6,679 open positions (an 87% increase), and PeopleSoft experience, with 2,147 currently available job listings (a 98% increase). Telecommunications experience is requested in 2,959 positions listed on Dice.com, representing a 97% increase over previous reports.
“There are technology skill sets where job postings have ballooned at more than twice the market rate. That feat labels these skills as bright spots in an improving job market where overall tech job postings are growing at 40% year over year,” stated Tom Silver, senior vice president of North America at Dice, in the January report.
According to Dice, there are 68,026 available tech jobs. Full-time positions reach 42,954 while there are 29,476 contract positions and 1,378 part-time positions listed on the career Web site.
IT job data reported elsewhere suggests that the return to high-tech jobs will be slow or nonexistent, with certain post-recession conditions forever changing the market. CIO.com in December 2010 ran an article pointing to automation, offshoring and better global IT infrastructure as reasons the IT profession will never be the same again.
A December 2010 story in Computerworld suggested the brightest spot for IT professions is the fact that layoffs and headcount reductions have finally tapered off. There is growth at a pace much slower than some might expect. And a January article in Network World also included a contrarian view, suggesting that companies are exploring more options, outsourcing entry-level positions and moving applications into the cloud.
“It is a jobless recovery for IT because of two things,” explained Janco Associates CEO Victor Janulaitis in the Network World article. “IT organizations are not in a hiring mode … and we have companies outsourcing a lot of lower-level and entry-level jobs. Unless you’re somebody who has prior experience or lots of contacts, it’s very, very difficult to find a job.”
What are your hiring plans for 2011? Are there specific skill sets you need now? Will you meet those needs with full-time staff or will you contract the work? Please leave a comment here or share your thoughts and experiences with me directly via e-mail at Denise.Dubie@ca.com.
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