The Dice IT Job Numbers

Every month I get the Dice.com newsletter, and I've watched the number of job openings fall depressingly over the last year or so. There was a time in 2008 when the site hosted some 90,000 tech job openings. Then it began to slip. And slip. Then fall, then fall some more. Now the count seems (knock on wood) to have steadied around 50,000 jobs. 

More encouraging, Dice VP Tom Silver says that the site's two biggest markets, Silicon Valley and New York, are now seeing higher job openings than at any time in 2009. There are also encouraging signs in smaller markets like Charlotte and Austin, which have seen increases in job postings of 45 and 31 percent, respectively, since this very tough year began. 

Another possible green shoot: Silver says that, for the first time in more than a year, recruiters are feeling more confidence in the business climate. (That nasty "Armageddon is coming" feeling is fading -- we hope.) 

Silver, though, isn't blowing any trumpets. "We can't say we've seen a true turn in the market," he writes. Yet I, for one, am hanging on to the hopeful signs. It's been a long, long recession, hasn't it? It's past time for the tech market -- and the overall job market -- to get a healthy dose of optimism.