Knocklein Career Web Blog

By: Don E. Sears
2010-08-17

IT workers with hybrid skills that mix technology and business management expertise, along with certifications, will be highly sought after as technology jobs grow in the double digits over the next four years, says a tech industry group.

Email Article To Friend ♦ Print Version Of Article ♦ PDF Version Of Article

Sponsored by zcartech.com the place to go for information and education about the Datsun Z-Car’s, including the 280ZX

There is good news on the technology jobs front if you have prior banking or financial industry experience. Salaries are higher than the average tech job, especially on Wall Street.

♦ Email To Friend ♦ Print Version ♦ PDF Version ♦ Read Full Version

By: Don E. Sears
2010-07-23

Most technology workers believe they can get a new job, though almost as many believe there are currently fewer IT jobs than there were, according to a Harris Interactive survey. As confidence rises like the summer temperatures, where are the jobs?

In the war between perception and reality, perception appears to have the edge right now.

IT worker confidence in the second quarter of 2010 has risen 6.6 points to 58.2 despite rocky economic indicators all around, according to a survey by Harris Interactive that was sponsored and published by staffing company Technisource.

Confidence is measured in three areas in this quarterly study: strength of the economy, ability to find a new job and availability of jobs. Thirty-eight percent of tech workers polled said they believe the economy is getting stronger, 41 percent believe the economy is flat and 20 percent believe it is weakening.

“As the recovery lumbers forward slowly, we are seeing technology deployments in new areas that provide increased performance, such as VOIP [voice over IP] and Windows 7,” Michael Winwood, president of Technisource, said in a July 20 statement. “With these long-needed new deployments, companies are also making new investments in staff—many looking to contingent staffing as a more strategic approach to the recovery at this point.”

Only 17 percent of tech workers polled said they believe there are more jobs available now, with almost 50 percent believing there are fewer jobs. The other 34 percent are “neutral.” The most surprising number in this entire study is the 54 percent of tech workers who are confident in their ability to get a new job. Only a quarter of those surveyed are not confident in this category.

“During the recession many companies had to initiate hiring freezes, postpone new technology implementations and simply ‘do more with less,’” Winwood said. “The marked increase in confidence this quarter tells us that technology workers may be in a more solid position for the economic recovery, compared to other industries.”

Perhaps so, but other indicators show a very cautious economic vibe in the United States despite some economic growth in 2010. Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke spoke to Congress July 21 and described a jobs situation that is still very much hurting.

“In June, U.S. factory output fell 0.4 percent, the most in a year, housing starts declined to the lowest level in eight months and private employers added fewer workers to payrolls than economists forecast,” Bloomberg reported on the state of the economy and Bernanke’s remarks. “The average growth in private payrolls of 100,000 a month so far this year is ‘insufficient to reduce the unemployment rate materially,’ and it will probably take a ’significant amount of time’ to restore the almost 8.5 million jobs lost in 2008 and 2009, Bernanke said.”

Despite the caution and gloom of many economists, Forrester Research predicts growth in IT spending 2010. A July 21 report forecast IT spending for the year of $753 billion, which would be a 9.9 percent increase from 2009.

“The most likely alternative to our forecast remains slower growth than we assume in the U.S., as continued slow growth in employment saps consumer spending and the strong dollar and weak European economy hurts U.S. exports,” Forrester wrote. “That scenario, which we put at a 25 percent probability, would cause growth in both the U.S. and global tech markets to slow to the 5 percent to 7 percent range.”

Email Article To Friend ♦ Print Version Of Article ♦ PDF Version Of Article

Article Source

By Dennis McCafferty on 2010-07-20
Americans are increasingly pessimistic that the current employment picture will turn around anytime soon, according to a new survey from Harris Interactive. Maybe they’ve heard the phrase, “jobless recovery,” too many times on the evening news, or they’ve had too many out-of-work friends e-mail too many resumes without ever getting a response from a prospective employer. Even Vice President Joe Biden recently conceded that not all the jobs lost in the past few years will be coming back. The Harris survey reveals that pessimism remains high everywhere. So if you’re relatively secure in your IT job, should you care? Yes, you should. Because an extended lack of confidence among Americans in general is bad for businesses everywhere, and often leads to a domino-effect with respect to decreased sales and other negative consumer behaviors. What’s troubling is that the sense of hopelessness isn’t just focused on the present — it will linger into the immediate future, and perhaps beyond, according to the results. Some 2,227 American adults took the Harris Interactive survey.

View the slideshow here.

By: Don E. Sears
2010-07-12

Government data for June showed a gain of 9,100 technology jobs, but the numbers in the five categories are fluctuating dramatically from month to month.

The jobs situation for technology workers is rocky. It is reflective of the larger economic picture in 2010. Data put out on June from the Department of Labor showed an increase of more than 9,000 jobs. It is welcome news, especially for those who have found employment.

The bigger jobs picture, however, continues to be murky and unpredictable.

“The accent in the IT work force right now is on acquiring skills more than it is on hiring full time employees,” said David Foote, founder and chief research officer of Foote Partners, an information technology analyst firm, in a July 3 research note. “Beyond the fact that it’s more expensive to hire full–timers, it can take months to find the right person even though the number of unemployed workers is so large… This is stimulating interest in managed services, cloud computing, SAAS, PAAS, IAAS, contractors and consultants. It’s also contributing to all this volatility in pay and demand for skills and people.”

According to Foote, government figures for IT jobs are outdated as they only track 4 million workers; Foote estimates technology workers to number between 20 million and 25 million.

“The DOL data doesn’t specifically identify millions of IT professionals working in business lines, corporate departments and in various enterprise strategic and operational functions,” said Foote. “These jobs require skills well beyond technology; for instance, precise industry, customer, product, and solution knowledge and expertise.

“That said, we’re still seeing this same see-sawing in our own broader jobs research, and also in the market for IT skills. With so much economic pessimism out there it is certain that this volatility will persist, thwarting any positive momentum that might show up from time to time.”

The see-sawing has been intense. Most job categories the Department of Labor tracks have seen wide fluctuations. IT Services saw an increase of more than 10,000 in June; In May, that segment lost 700 jobs. Management and Technical Consulting has been on the same rollercoaster, losing 5,000 jobs in January, 3,400 in February, with gains of 2,100 total for March and April.

The Computer Systems Design category has also been a wild ride. After gaining 7,300 jobs in April, this category lost a total of 6,400 jobs in May and June.

What IT services and skills are in demand right now?

“What we’re seeing is demand for IT services fueling very selective hiring in certain hot sectors including ERP, virtualization, security, SAN storage, business process management, Web platforms, and a few other applications development areas,” noted Foote. “Basically job demand in the services sector will rise and fall throughout the remainder of the year based on when employers decide to the pull the trigger on spending budget allocations that have already been approved.”