There is still plenty of local work for skilled IT staff despite a global financial crisis, according to one of Australia's largest technology staff recruiters, but not much room to move in terms of higher salaries.
The IT jobs market was still as buoyant today as it was six months ago, according Peter Noblet, regional director of Hays Information Technology recruitment.
"While there is no denying employers are monitoring the international financial crisis closely, and there certainly have been consequences locally, it is not accurate to assume it has impacted recruitment activity in every sector," he said today.
"We see no evidence that the [information technology] market as a whole will stop hiring any time soon. In fact, strong demand still exists from those companies looking to up-skill their current staff".
After several years of modest salary growth, the recruiter's latest quarterly report says salaries have "stabilised over the past six months and are unlikely to increase in the immediate future".
The recruiter said that many candidates now valued job security as highly as they would salary. "People seeking permanent employment are looking at other areas like the company's position in the market, the impact they would have in their job, rather than just the rates of pay," said Noblet.
The growth areas, according to Hays, included the booming Queensland capital of Brisbane, the resource-rich Perth as well as work within the government sector in Victoria.
Skills-wise, the most in-demand roles were in software development, network engineering, technical writers, business analysts and trainers. On the nose are middle management and project managers, both in over-supply.
Candidates with experience around Microsoft (particularly .NET, SQL Server and SharePoint), SAP and Cisco IP telephony are best-placed for work. Candidates with experience in "green" cost-saving technologies such as virtualisation also continue to be in high demand.
My prediction is that some International IT giants with local offices will start to tighten the screws on operating expense (e.g. workforce) in 2-3 months time as the impact of our declining exchange rate hits home. Some companies are still riding on decent quarter hedge rates but will become exposed when they have to report back in US dollars on a target that is now effectively 30% harder to achieve than same time last year.