The ACS (Australian Computer Society) today released the results of its annual ICT Employment Survey for 2004 - indicating jobs in the local ICT industry are picking up but unemployment levels remain above the national average.

Within those ACS members surveyed, unemployment among Australian ICT workers is running at 7.2%[1] down from 12.1% in 2002, and falling for the second year running. Whilst the survey indicates the drop in unemployment amongst ICT professionals is more pronounced than in the national unemployment rate as a whole, it remains more than 2 percentage points higher than the national average of 5.1per cent.

The survey also found a strong increase in the number of ICT unemployed who claimed programming or business analysts as their main job responsibility. Programmers made up a high 18% of the ICT jobless in 2003 - in the 2004 survey this rose even higher to 22.2%. Business analysts represented only 5.4per cent of those claiming they were unemployed in 2003 - jumping to 17.8% of those surveyed in 2004.

Project Managers, on the other hand, had the most marked improvement in fortunes across the two surveys - dropping from 19.6% of the ICT jobless in the 2003 survey to 8.9% in the latest survey.

ACS President, Mr Edward Mandla said: "Overall, the survey indicates what we have been saying for some time - that job growth is trending in the right direction but it is not good news for everyone. While, it's extremely encouraging to see the drop in unemployment for the second year in a row, I remain deeply concerned that both our permanent and temporary migration programs have contributed to Australian unemployment."

"The ACS migration study has shown that both our permanent and temporary visa programs are still bringing in high numbers of inexperienced programmers - and programmers currently have the highest unemployment levels in Australia. This makes no sense. Employers are looking for well rounded business professionals with soft skills to match their business process and systems integration skills. Neither our education or migration system is addressing skill shortages and the ACS will continue research and develop policy in this area."

"Extremely high pockets of unemployment remain in many areas of our sector, and it's also alarming to see that training amongst the unemployed is on the wane."

"The ACS has commissioned a training study to examine what levels of training an ICT professional ought to maintain in their career, what they are actually getting and who should pay. These are issues we will continue to raise with Government, and we will also be addressing in the ACS ICT industry policy, to be released later this year."

"Whilst the membership survey results are indicative of what is happening amongst our own membership base, they fit with the anecdotal evidence from our sector, and are in line with other industry research completed in the past twelve months," said Mandla.

Other key findings in the ACS members survey include:

High pockets of unemployment remain within the ICT sector:
The highest level of unemployment was reported from the combined group of Victorian and Tasmanian respondents. This stood at 11.3% though this represented a decline from last year when this figure was 12.3% and from 2002 when this was 13.6%. And 10.3% of South Australian respondents reported they were unemployed -; continuing an upward trend evident over the last three surveys.
 
Dramatic growth in unemployment amongst the Education and Research and Development sectors - up from 4.4% in 2002 to 11.1% in 2004.
Strong growth in the employability of ICT workers under 35, and especially those under 25.
 
Time spent either under or unemployed in the last five years, as an average, has been steadily dropping over the last three years. In 2002 respondents reported that they had spent on average around 14 months under or unemployed over the last 5 years. In 2003 this average had dropped to just over a year. In 2004, it was around 7.5 months.
 
More ICT workers are in full time employment compared with two years ago. Almost 68% of respondents were full-time salaried staff - up from 61% in 2002. Part time salaried staff this survey fell from 4% in 2003 to just under 3%.
 
More than 10per cent of respondents to the 2004 study had completed no training in the past twelve months. Unemployed respondents also showed a reduced enthusiasm for undertaking further training - with 15.6% stating they had undertaken no training in the past 12 months.
 
The internet is increasingly seen as the best source of new ICT positions - up from 32.7% in 2002 to 45.0% in 2004. This seems to be at the expense of newspapers - down from 19.3% considering it the best source of new ICT positions in 2002 to 7.9% in 2004.
 
There was encouraging growth in the number of respondents who rated their dealings with recruitment agencies as either excellent or good - up from 17.9% in the 2003 survey to 22.1% in 2004. However, there was also a continuing decline in those regarding their experiences with such companies as either poor or abysmal.
 
The purpose of the research is to identify and assess trends in the ICT employment market in Australia. The results were drawn from a survey of ACS members on a range of employment-related issues. The ACS is Australia's largest body for ICT professionals and represents an ICT sector that comprises around 218,000 core-professionals and accounts for approximately 10% of GDP.