With all of the mixed reports about the future of the information Technology industry, it's hard to know how to make sense of it all.
The IT industry has always been volatile, with lots of ups and downs. Maybe it is just the nature of the industry itself; rapid changes in the types of technology available and the ways that users access information, puts the corporate world in an constant race to keep up. A year or two ago, for example, it may have been hard for anyone to predict how the rise of social media was going to change the way that businesses and consumers interact. Location based marketing and group-sourcing discount with sites like Foursquare and Groupon were just a blip on the radar screen.
It seems to make sense that with the changes, there would be a greater demand for experienced, capable Information Systems managers and IT staff. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics agrees and predicted that employment in the field is expected to grow faster than average for all IT job titles between 2008-18.
But, anyone who has been looking for an IT job, or any out-of-work systems admin can tell you, finding a job isn't as easy as you would think. The term “jobless recovery” keeps being used and some people are worried that many of the IT jobs lost may not come back. In fact, a December 2010 report from NetworkWorld said that IT jobs are never coming back. They blame outsourcing to countries like India and South Africa for their disappearance. After reading several articles, all with a similar theme, it made me wonder – with such contradictory reports, how is anyone supposed to make sense of it all?
To try to get a clearer picture, I took a look at the 4th quarter report from Nexxt. The Report provides a current snapshot of the technology job market. Nexxt takes many factors into consideration, including educational background, experience level and length of job search. According to their report, there are over 81,000 jobs posted in the the technical area. The top keywords searched by job seekers include Systems Support & Documentation, Application Development, Networking & Telecomm and Technical Recruiting. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of network and computer systems administrators will continue to increase as companies have to invest in new technologies in order to be competitive.
If there are so many openings, why are there still many highly skilled IT professionals pounding the pavement looking for a job?
According to a Online Employment Report by Elance, there is a new, growing demand for freelance IT professionals. They reported that spending for freelancing services increased 11% over the previous quarter and a stunning 50% over the same quarter last year. The majority of this spending, they said, was due to a strong demand for mobile app developers, cloud computing professionals, online marketing and Facebook developers.
It seems that even PC World agrees, and says that freelance jobs are on the rise. They attribute most of the increase to tech wars and new trends in the field. Mobile apps and geo-location services like Foursquare are competing with social networking sites like Twitter; Adobe and Apple's battle has increased the demand for HTML5 jobs. They went on to say that internet hosting services, commonly called “The Cloud” also had impressive increases, with jobs requiring experience with Amazon Web Services growing 446%.
After looking at the issue from many different angles, I think that I will stick with my earlier prediction that the Tech industry as a whole is doing well. Most of the reports are showing an increase in hiring, with even more job openings being anticipated throughout the year. Companies that have been cutting expenses are now starting to consider updating their operating systems and adopting Windows 7, and when they do this, they will be looking to streamline other operations while they are at it.
When it comes to IT, I don't see any way that this is going to be a “jobless recovery”.
What do you think about the changes in the IT field? Let me know in the comments.
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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for TechCareersBlog. Along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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