This caps a horror 12 month decline for IT&T sector, which dropped 79 percent to -shocking levels", according to Robert Olivier, director of Olivier E-cruitment Advisors.
-If you're in IT, this is especially shocking," he said. -If you had hoped to come back to good news after Christmas-there's nothing here to give you confidence that things are going to get better."
The good news comes in comparing the Job Index Report, which is an average of weekly ratings throughout the month, with the breakdown of the sector by occupation, which is done monthly. These results show an increase in every section compared to December. However, once these monthly results are converted to weekly averages, the only occupations showing significant increases are Hardware Engineering Systems and Instruction/Training/Writing.
-This shows numbers were going down in December and are coming up in January," said Olivier. -So next month's figures should be more positive."
The Multimedia, Internet and Graphics sector has registered it's second rise since the peak in May 2000, but hopes are slim this will halt the twenty month trend of steady decline. -I wouldn't read much into that increase, until we see a genuine trend," warned Olivier.
