Stan Beer
Monday, 08 September 2008 09:15
IT People -
Enterprise
Page 1 of 2
New employment figures paint a gloomy picture for the Australian IT&T jobs sector with a leading survey showing a precipitous drop in positions on offer in August. According to the survey, IT&T suffered one of the worst falls of all professional sectors last month and has dropped markedly over the last 12 months.
The Olivier Job Index, produced monthly by
professional sectors recruiting firm Olivier Group, surveyed 383,750
Positions Vacant ads on commercial job sites in August and analysed
them by state and industry sector.
The survey found that IT&T positions dropped a worrying 8.28% in
August, worse than the hard hit Accounting (8.24%) and Financial
Services (7.92%) sectors. Only the Human Resources sector (8.40%)
suffered a bigger drop in advertised positions.
The set of figures for the past 12 months also gave no cause for cheer,
according to Olivier, with IT&T suffering a 14.81% decline in
advertised job vacancies. While not as bad as the Financial Services
and Banking sector which declined 23.19%, IT&T which had been
recovering from an already low base, has been particularly weak this
year.
According to Robert Olivier, Director of the Olivier Group, there may
be some hope that the Reserve Bank's recent interest rate cut could
change employer sentiment.
“We've observed the effects of 12 interest rate rises over the past
seven years,” says Mr Olivier. “When the growth was on they didn't
cause much of a pause. We saw an effect when there were two in a row.
Now they're headed the other way, we'll be watching our data closely to
see the effect of this interest rate drop. This sends a signal to
business that the rises have stopped.”
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