IT Job Market Continues to Grow

The demand for IT workers continues to grow, and salaries are inching up

along with job demand, according to a new study.

And it’s a dramatic change from the job market of just two years ago,

according to Scott Melland, president and CEO of New York-based Dice

Inc., an online recruiting service for IT professionals.

”Two years or three years ago, there were a lot more technical

professionals looking for something different or they were unemployed and

looking for work,” Melland told Datamation. ”Today, that is not

the case. Many companies are being forced to pull talented people from

other companies… They’re luring them in with better salaries and the

age-old attraction for tech professionals — the opportunity to work on

the latest technologies or high-impact projects.”

Getting back into a strong job market where workers have the luxury of

being courted by other companies is a far cry from the long unemployment

lines where many IT professionals found themselves after the dot-com

bubble burst and the technology sector went into a steep slide. Two or

three years ago, companies found themselves flooded with resumes for any

kind of IT job opening.

Now the tables are starting to turn again. And IT professionals may find

themselves in the driver’s seat, according to Melland.

Dice’s analysts report that job postings on their site increased 3.6

percent over the past month, to 79,358. They also note that requests for

technology professionals with J2EE/Java experience showed the greatest

gain this past month, with postings rising 10.8 percent, to 10,357.

Dice also announced the quarterly update of its salary survey. As of Oct.

10, the survey found the average salary for a technology professional was

$69,700, an increase of 2.8 percent since December 2004. The average

salary of a contract worker was $87,107, while the average salary for

permanent employees increased to $65,479 from $64,300 at the end of 2004.

”I think this is all part of a much larger movement out there, which is

increased technical spending by U.S. corporations and the Department of

Defense and the government,” says Melland. ”That technical spending

really is the result of a lot of companies and agencies upgrading their

technologies. We’re still in the midst of a tech upgrade cycle that many

companies are going through. They need more technical professionals to

make those upgrades and then manage the new systems they’re putting in

place.

”In general, it has to do with catching up on projects and

infrastructure that they did not upgrade in the early part of 2001 to

2003. In corporate America, there was Sarbanes-Oxley on top of this. In

the financial services firms, there’s a lot of technology being applied

on the customer side of the fence.”

Melland says these are the most sough-after positions: