The survey covered the employment intentions of almost 5,000 employers across all sectors nationwide, which collectively represent more than three million employees.
In the information technology sector, 28.7 percent of employers indicating they would hire additional staff, against 5.9 percent indicating they would reduce staff, for a positive net effect of 22.9 percent. This is a 2.5 percent increase quarter-on-quarter but 6.7 percent below the hiring expectations of May-July last year (the closest period for which figures are available).
"There's stimulation in the sales side of IT, the vendor space," Melanie Kontze, who heads up the IT&T e-resourcing business at TMP, told ZDNet Australia . "The sales people generate new business which leads to further growth in terms of overall employee numbers."
The Telecommunications sector saw a positive net effect of 13.9 percent, with 27.7 percent of companies indicating positive hiring intentions and 13.9 percent indicating negative hiring intentions. This was an increase of 5.5 percent over the hiring intentions last quarter and 1.4 percent over the May-July 2002 period.
"Australia's telecommunications industry has been less impacted by the global situation [telecommunications-wise] than US companies might be," said Kontze, referring to general disaster in the telco business sector and the high prices paid for mobile bandwidth. She added there had been some restructuring of the telecommunications industry, which led to new jobs in different areas and requiring different skills.
"The real thing is [IT and Telecommunications are] actually coming off a very low base, so any growth is positive," said Kontze.
