Recruiters reports clash again over IT&T jobs market

Stan Beer
Monday, 12 May 2008 16:35

IT People - Enterprise

Two of Australia's leading monthly jobs market watchers, Olivier Group and Best People Solutions, are in sharp disagreement over the state of the IT&T jobs market. Olivier has the market on a downward slide while the latest data from Best shows the market is on the climb. Both recruiters are sticking to their guns, claiming their respective reports represent the correct state of play.

Olivier's last three reports paint a grim picture with job ads dropping nearly 10% over the past three months. According to Olivier's April report, IT&T job ads fell  1.92% bringing the three monthly drop to 9.73%. Olivier, which specialises in the Financial Services sector, pointed to the 11% downturn in that sector and predicts recent news that  Westpac is planning to send more of its functions offshore will augur ill for IT&T.

In contrast, the Best IT Talent Index for April has the IT&T job ads up 5.47% for month, including a 6.4% increase in permanent and 2.91% increase in contract positions. For the three months, the Best reports indicate IT&T job adds rose a total of 11.91%.

The 22% disparity in the results from the two recruitment camps stem from the respective methodologies in gathering job ads data. Olivier bases its reports on normalised seasonally adjusted figures and sources the IT&T job ads on the three largest Australian jobs boards, Seek, My Career and Career One. In contrast, Best uses raw jobs data and sources the IT&T job ads on Seek only.

Of the two firms, Olivier has the longer track record, having published monthly reports since 2000, compared to two and half years of reporting by Best. However, the Best report has a specific focus on IT&T jobs, while Olivier tracks a wide range of industries and does not have an IT&T recruitment division.

"I guess you could say that makes us impartial when it comes to IT&T jobs figures," says Olivier Group director, Robert Olivier.

Olivier maintains that using seasonally adjusted figures provides a more accurate representation of the true state of the jobs market, Best argues that seasonally adjusted figures do not really make much difference outside of seasonally sensitive months such as December and January. What's more, according to Best, the recent Federal election and subsequent change of government further distorted the IT&T jobs market, which is heavily dependent on government projects. CONTINUED