On Monday, Telstra subsidiary Network Design and Construction (NDC) announced it was slashing a further 210 jobs from its Brisbane operations.
The announcement is the most recent in a spate of companies continuing to lay off IT workers over the past six months.
John Roberts, director of research at Gartner Asia Pacific, believes that because of the redundancy provisions in Australia, layoffs tend to only happen as part of a company's carefully considered long-term strategy.
-Most prudent IT departments in Australia have always had a mix of their own staff and contractors," he said. -So that as major projects come up they employ more contract staff, and so without layoffs are able to cut back again at a later stage...so swings in layoffs are not in IT departments but in the contracting industry."
Roberts adds that contractors should be used to the cyclic swings in the IT industry, as that's always been the life of being a contractor.
It's also not all bad news, if recent predictions for 2002 do crystalise.
TMP Worldwide has just released its Worldwide Job Index, which predict that 30 percent of local IT firms predict hiring increases over the next six months.
This is backed up by research from Gartner. It has found that the overall IT market was flat in 2001, after a 16 percent growth rate the year previous year. Gartner is also forecasting a gradual pick up this year, predicting up to seven percent growth, although it is still urging caution.
Jeanette Jones, senior consultant, at TMP also warns that it continues to be a market which is skewed in favour of employers. -We certainly have a buyer's market--the employer has lots of choice--the person looking for a role now has to be sure of the skills they do have and to look at different ways they can apply those skills."
Likewise, Jones said that TMP's outplacement services section had been busy, with employers using their services if they were going through the retrenchment process.
-It provides an immediate vehicle for them [the staff] to express their concernsââ,¬"people are often in shock if they don't expect it," Jones said.
She also warns IT workers who have been retrenched not to get disheartened. -People also start to apply for any job, which is not a good thing," she said.
-They have to understand what their skills are and how to use those skills appropriately...[if they're] really needing to find a job they start to apply for anything, and it becomes a process where they're going to be rejected more and more often."
Likewise, Grant Montgomery, managing director at human resources company EL Consult said that there is a right and a wrong way to retrench staff to comply with the relevant legislative requirements in Australia. He warns of the possibility of employees coming back and suing the company if they get it wrong.
