Hire now or miss out: Hudson

A Hudson report outlining employment expectations has said that a hot employment market means necessary hires need to be made now, or there won't be any good candidates left.

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The report said that 42.2 per cent of IT employers surveyed are planning to employ more permanent staff over the next three months.

"The job market is now growing at its fastest rate in five years, and demand for employees is rapidly translating into higher wages," said the recruitment company's ICT national practice director, Martin Retschko.

"With the strong hiring sentiment reflected throughout most markets, employers are having to compete for staff, and candidates are once again able to have some bargaining power when it comes to their wages."

However, the number of employers intending on expanding staff numbers was 1.8 per cent lower than last quarter, according to the Hudson report. The survey spanned 4709 employers in Australia.

"After having risen continuously for the last 18 months, this result is 1.8 percentage points lower than that reported last quarter, possibly due to some employers reaching their required capacity after having already undertaken significant recruitment drives," it wrote.

It also attributed the reduction in hiring permanent staff due to companies contracting and outsourcing services to external firms instead of employing internal staff.

The report also recommended that employers bolster efforts to retain and attract staff "because the best talent will not be around for long" in current hiring conditions.

This follows reports in 2010 of employers regretting IT staff cuts due to the global financial crisis.