IT umbrella company contractors are well placed to weather the jobs storm, according to the results of a recent survey by the CIPD.
When the Institute asked hirers about their recruitment plans recently they discovered that 20% of hirers intend to create more jobs in IT over the next five years. The only occupations that were classed as ‘hotter’ were business development and sales and marketing.
In the shorter term, 15% of respondents plan to concentrate their efforts on their IT departments. As far as demand goes in the current quarter, IT candidates top the hard skills list, although people with soft skills such as secretaries and sales assistants will probably find themselves in even greater demand.
Despite the positive outlook for IT hiring, the overall outlook is bleak with 60% of companies saying they will not create any new positions before the end of March. Added to that, firms in the private sector are expecting to reduce their headcounts at the fastest rate since the spring of 2009.
The private sector seems to have moved past wait and see mode and decided the time has come to make redundancies due to worsening economic news. This will impact the prospects of all job seekers, but there are also micro challenges facing British born IT candidates.
It transpires that organisations may continue to prefer to hire IT workers from outwith the European Union. Already non-EU migrant workers are more likely to be found in the IT sector than any of the other industries that regularly look for staff.
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Image: #rain #shelter #umbrellas by Jay Santiago
