IT&T recruitment firm, Greythorn, has appointed a new general manager to run its business in New South Wales.

By the end of last year Australia had around 700 too many ICT managers, and 2,700 too few ICT professionals. It’s the classic case of too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

At a time when banks are shedding IT roles by the dozen, it seems counter-intuitive that 83 per cent of the nation’s chief information officers should report they are confident about the future of their business to the extent that 45 per cent expect to hire IT staff in the first six months of the year. The question remains – is this a dead cat bounce?

Specialist IT recruiter, Finite IT Recruitment Solutions, has stormed ahead with business growth over 2010-2011, particularly in the government sector, writing contracts across all if its business segments to the tune of $50.6 million and ensuring a third placed ranking in the recruitment sector this year, according to a labour hire report just released.

Listed recruitment firm Clarius Group has issued a warning to the Australian Stock Exchange that its net profit after tax for the six months to the end of 2011 will fall in the range $1.2-1.4 million, well down on the previous comparable period profit of $2.4 million. The sharemarket didn’t like the news one iota.

Australian cloud computing and public storage company, Ninefold, is expanding its team, already tripled in size, for next year to support what it says is demand from specific vertical and geographical markets and anticipated growth over the next 12 months.

IT hiring managers are cautiously optimistic about the year ahead with many of them expecting to take on new staff over the next 12 months, with the intention to hire more likely with medium sized companies less reliant on cost restraint due to the global economic uncertainty.

The sense that today is crunch time for Europe has the financial markets on a knife edge; but it could also open the doors for IT skills as expats and Europeans concerned at the situation in the Northern Hemisphere look to the apparently more benign Australian market for jobs in 2012.  

According to Telstra, research it has conducted suggests that around 12 percent of employers have rejected job applicants based on what they have found on the applicant's Facebook or Twitter postings.

First the brutal stuff; if you’re an out of work IT professional, you’re probably not going to find the right job this side of Christmas and contractors should take what they can find. The flip side is you can relax and enjoy the summer - as long as you carve some time to freshen up the CV, line up good strong referees, polish up your soft skills and dry clean your suit ready for a February kick off.