ITWire

In its latest quarterly salary survey, IT recruitment company Peoplebank, reveals that the Canberra job market has gone decidedly off the boil with some contracting rates –for database administrators and infrastructure engineer roles in particular - also taking a salary haircut. Peter Acheson, Peoplebank CEO, said that the hiring slowdown was largely a result of the introduction of the Government’s 4 per cent efficiency programme late last year.

That had “slowed things down from an IT perspective as it has slowed down new programmes and impacted IT hiring.” He noted though that this was a “one off impact” and that he remained hopeful that demand will start to tick upwards with the start of the new financial year beginning next week.

“The reason that I am confident there will be an improvement is to do with the Federal Budget and the allocation of capital for IT projects. There is more capital for IT programmes in 2012-13 than there was in 2011-12 and at some stage that will flow through,” said Mr Acheson.

Kevin Noonan, the Canberra based research director of IT analyst Ovum, agreed that the Canberra market in particular was slow as a result of the November mini budget which prompted headcount reductions and cutbacks in capital funding. “Since then the market has been slowing,” he said.

“But that will wash through…and we will return to moderate but steady growth,” he said, as a result of the IT projects and programme activity announced in the May Budget.

Canberra is not alone in feeling the pinch. Mr Noonan said that the IT market in general was not booming, with many sectors taking a very cautionary approach to spending and hiring.

He added that there was some evidence of contractors being locked into long contracts at the current low rates.