November IT Employment Falls In U.S.

Staff Writer, Dec 22, 2008

November IT Employment Falls In U.S.It’s not news, not unemployment news at least. The country has been battling with a struggling economy that simply isn’t resistant to change. Change as in loss of jobs that its. You’ve seen it on the news. Heard it on the radio. Perhaps even been one of the ones who has been the recipient of one of those proverbial pink slips. Whatever the case may be, you know there’s no industry that’s exempt from the need to streamline processes and procedures as well as the staff who do the work.

Information Technology (IT) is no exception. According to the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses (NACCB), 34,000 jobs were lost or dropped in November this year. That equates out to approximately 0.87 percent. These numbers may sound disparaging but, truth be told, IT is still one of the most highly regarded fields and proves it by the fact that the 34,000 jobs lost this year represent numbers that reflect employment trends in IT that are 2.1 percent higher than November, 2007.

Before you rush off to start a fast track program to get an IT degree, read on. A reputable IT recruiting site, survey approximately 1,000 IT recruiters and managers recently and discovered that 72 percent are scaling back hiring plans ranging from moderately to significantly. Results indicated that less than 25 percent of recently surveyed IT firms said they were not considering cutting back their IT staff. Nearly 50 percent suggested that layoffs are imminent or most likely in the new year.

A modest 22 percent of the respondents indicating that they were not scaling back at all. But by contrast, 70 percent of respondents indicated they have seen a noticeable increase in the number of candidates applying for available IT positions within their companies.

The November drop of 34,000 jobs leaves an estimated 3.9 million IT positions still in existence. These positions may continue to become in high demand and more coveted as time goes on, depending on the conditions of the economy that have a marked influence on every industry, including IT. NACCB CEO Mark Roberts says he wasn’t surprised by the drop even though he’s certain that IT employment “…continues to outperform the general employment marketplace on a year-over-year basis”.