The highly-regarded Olivier Internet Job Index, released Sunday, revealed that the number of IT jobs advertised on the Internet fell by 630, or 9.8 percent, in November over October. This follows a 9.1 percent decline in October over September.. The number of positions in a related category, multimedia, Internet and graphic design, fell 7.9 percent in November over October. Companies advertised less than 200 positions on the Internet in the sector for the entire month.
"The IT sector is certainly worse than anyone would have predicted," said Robert Olivier, the director of Olivier Recruitment Group. "It's dropped 39.1 percent in 12 months now. We continue to hear of retrenchments even among Australia's most prominent companies. Intentions to hire next year may be a lot stronger than they were twelve months ago ... let's just hope that's followed through with action".
This is in stark contrast to the IT executive market, which rose by 40 percent in November over October, according to Executive Recruitment company E.L. Consult.
Of all the job functions in the IT&T sector, only two saw a rise in the number of ads, Olivier claimed. desktop support and helpdesk ads increased by 30 percent, and database development and administration increased by nine percent. Positions most in demand fell into the category of software development and engineering, which captured 31.9 percent of the IT&T job ads, despite a fall of seven percent in advertised places from October to November.
The overall number of job advertisements on the Internet fell by 2.6 percent in November, equivalent to 1,500 jobs nationally.
"The job market traditionally softens before Christmas," said Olivier. "But this is a softening, not a collapse. While this is the third consecutive monthly fall, it is a steadier and more gradual decline than in the past two years".
General IT down by 39.1% in 12 months.
IT Exec up 40% in 1 month.
Too many chiefs, not enough indians.
This could be why IT spending is also down. More is going into useless exec salaries rather than into infrastructure.
Trim the deadwood (useless middle management) and watch how IT really works.