Australian IT jobs ads drop like a stone

Stan Beer
Friday, 07 March 2008 07:57

IT People - Enterprise

For the first time in three years, IT jobs growth looks to have hit the wall and looks to be on what could be steep downward slope, according to a new survey of Internet advertising.

The Olivier Job Index for February 2008, a monthly survey from recuitment firm Olivier Group, has fallen for the first time in three years, after job growth stuttered in mid February.

The Olivier Job Index surveyed 403,926 Positions Vacant ads on commercial job sites in February and analysed them by state and industry sector. While the sample includes a range of sectors besides IT, the sheer numbers of ads surveyed appears to give cause for concern to the previously bouyant IT market

Acrosss all industry sectors, job ads last month fell by 5.90% (seasonally adjusted) – the first fall since January 2005. This follows the fall in GDP growth in the December quarter.

Particularly worrying for the technology employment sector, however, is the fact that its decline is outpacing the overall market. The IT&T sector fell 7.11% seasonally adjusted in February.

According to the Olivier survey, the greatest number of jobs were for software development and engineering roles (13,730). This IT area rose 1.8% in February.

However, a worrying sign is that demand for IT sales and management positions took a significant hit. Within IT, there were 6,930 sales and management roles, which was a fall of 5.8% on the January 08 figures.