IT&T jobs in free fall: new report

Stan Beer
Monday, 08 September 2008 08:15

IT People - Enterprise

Confirming the empirical evidence of the Olivier report, Duncan Thomson, general manager of first tier Sydney based IT&T recruiter, Finite Recruitment, says the market has dropped noticeably in 2008.

"It's certainly softened since January  and numbers have slowed but there are still opportunities for work out there," says Mr Thomson.

According to Mr Thomson, we should expect the IT&T jobs market to decline further.

"Things will get worse before they get better," he says frankly.

"The interest rate cut (from the Reserve Bank) was a good start but it would be nice to see a few more. It's all gloom and doom coming out of Europe but it doesn't need to be that way here."

Other worrying signs from the Olivier survey are a sharp drop in graduate hiring, which is down 11% across the board over the past year, and companies laying off existing workers.

“If you're leaving uni without a job wrapped up, you may be struggling to find a role,” says Mr Olivier.

Olivier, like Finite's Mr Thomson, does not have a good prognosis for the immediate future of the jobs market.

"The outlook for jobs growth in the short term is not good in the light of the Reserve Bank's predictions of a possible 5% unemployment rate," the company stated in a release.

Highlighting a tough year, Olivier identified the struggling sectors over 12 months:

Financial Services and Banking down 23.19%
IT&T down 14.81%
Admin and clerical fell 10.72%
Accounting down 7.82%
Advertising and Media down 1.00%