IT recruiters: is it good-bye or good buy?

Stan Beer
Sunday, 03 August 2008 15:23

IT People - Recruitment

The managing director of Clarius, Diana Eilert, indicated to iTWire that as far as her company is concerned there are no major problems on the business front.

"From what we've seen, the recruitment sector continues to do well," says Ms Eilert.

"We have done some analysis on skills shortages and the shortage of professionals across the board is quite high and in IT it's what we would call extreme relative to our other measures. In fact, we're about to launch a skills measure in about a month. So let me start by saying demand outstrips supply still."

So why is the market punishing Clarius and other recruiters in the IT sector?

"It's really sentiment and a general view that things are getting tight," says Ms Eilert. "Consumer confidence is at the lowest point since 1991 and sentiment is driving this.

"The second thing is that we are all in small cap sectors that are just not in favour at the moment. So everyone is heading for the mining stocks and the reality is that there are just not as many buyers as there normally might be. The mining sector is where the institutions want to put their money right now. It's a view about the future rather than any reality."


Although, the IT part of Clarius's business is about two thirds contracting, Ms Eilert says there has been no drop-off in demand for permanent placements.

"I suspect the (skills) shortage is driving some of that," she says.

Robert Olivier, whose recruitment agency Olivier Group publishes a monthly report on the state of the professional jobs market in key sectors, including IT&T, has been one of the few voices in the recruitment industry to state unequivocally that there is a definite downturn in the IT jobs space. Unlike many recruiters, he does not lay the blame for recruiters' share price woes solely on the market's current aversion to microcaps.