The falling cost of IT workers has resulted in changes in the attitudes of IT managers, who are bringing more staff in-house and are not particularly concerned about keeping them, IDC claims.

Peter Hind, the user programs manager for IDC Australia, said a combination of organisations becoming more discerning about outsourcing and lower staff costs had seen companies' hiring trends lean towards internal hires, both full-time employees and contractors. He told the IDC Directions conference in Sydney today that surveys had revealed the proportion of an enterprises' IT budget allocated to internal staff had increased by 33 percent between January 2002 and January 2003 - from 15 percent to 20 percent of the overall budget.

The surveys also revealed a slight recovery in the hiring of contract staff between 2002 and 2003, following a precipitous drop between 2001 and 2002. According to respondents, in 2003, 4.9 percent of internal staff were contractors, up slightly from 2.1 percent in 2002 - a figure which had crashed from 13.4 percent in 2001. Hind attributed the slight recovery to the fall in contractor rates and the flexibility they offered the workforce.

The survey also found that staff turnover in the IT area was dropping as the pool of jobs dried up. In 1999 15 percent of staff left their organisation, whereas in 2003 only five percent of staff left voluntarily or were fired.

Hind said the surveys revealed that the proportion of coal-face employees in IT departments was sliding, while management was increasing. Management positions increased from eight percent in 1996 to 17 percent in 2003, according to Hind, while positions in application development fell from 39 percent in 1996 to 24 percent in 2003.

"There is not a great deal of creativity going on," said Hind, pointing out that only 17 percent of IT departments indicated they used system development tools.

A further worrying trend for IT workers is the declining importance IT management is placing on investing in their staff. The survey asked IT managers to indicate their top three concerns, and aggregated the results. "Retraining and recruiting IT staff" fell in the rankings from 15th position in 2002 to 22nd position in 2003. "Reskilling staff" fell from 12th position in 2002 to 16th position in 2003.

The top three concerns indicated by IT managers were "reducing cost", "aligning IT to the business" and "meeting user expectations".

The survey involved the mail-out of 6,000 questionnaires, and received 330 replies.

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