ICT jobs market tentatively on road to recovery

Peter Dinham
Monday, 26 October 2009 12:20

IT People - Recruitment

According to Stewart, July was one of those months that typically signify a recovery is on the way, and he says that Candle had experienced a spike in short-term orders from telcos, financial services companies and State Government departments.

“While the decision makers feel confident enough to spend some money, they won’t actively recruit new people until they see healthier bottom lines. And with Christmas approaching we wouldn’t expect companies to be loosening the purse strings until after the New Year period.”

Stewart also said that Candle ICT was seeing demand for revenue-generating roles such as business development managers and IT sales executives, which was “typically the case when businesses saw a recovery on the horizon,” adding that “once these people begin to secure sales, increased demand for more specialist skills to undertake the work the sales executives have signed up normally follows.”

Overall, across the ICT industry in Australia, Stewart said there were mixed signals coming from the major ICT markets.

In Canberra, he indicated that permanent recruitment “is at a very low level of activity” which he said may be due to Government departments seeking to fill vacant permanent positions with existing contracting staff.

Meanwhile in Queensland, contract and permanent recruitment has picked up slightly in the commercial space, according to Stewart, who said that projects with police, health and education are also driving moderate demand, although the State Government favours “converting contractor roles into permanent positions.” 

According to Candle, in Western Australia, big opportunities are emerging due to increased demand from the resources sector, and the Index found that skills shortages are likely to emerge in the middle of next year as resources companies seek highly experienced applications and infrastructure professionals to support major projects such as the Gorgon gas pipeline.

And, Candle found that in South Australia, permanent recruitment has picked up and, unlike other States, “much of this is occurring in the SME sector, while  “managed services projects undertaken by the State Government has been another positive influence,” and shortages of Cisco, Windows, Linux administrators are evident.