8 Trends Driving IT Job Growth, Salaries

1. Expect more churn in IT staff as CIOs accelerate their move to more flexibile staffing models, says Foote Partners. CIOs are outsourcing more technical work, including managed IP services such as VoIP and VPNs. They’re hiring more contractors for desktop and security services, and they’re putting more applications such as remote backup in the cloud. At the same time, they’re looking to hire IT people with business and analytical skills, such as risk management and project management. Indeed, CIOs report that they’re having trouble hiring IT people because either they can’t find IT professionals with the right business skills or they can’t afford them. All of this means more turnover in IT departments.

2. IT hiring will grow in the second half of 2010, according to Dice.com. The Dice.com Web site, which lists tech job openings, conducted a survey of IT hiring managers and recruiters, and nearly half of them said they plan to add 10% more employees in the next six months than they did in the first half of the year. Another 28% of respondents plan to increase hiring by 11% to 20%. Survey respondents are getting more optimistic about salaries, too. A quarter of survey respondents predicted that IT salaries will rise in 2010, compared to 10% of survey respondents making this prediction six months ago. Another good sign: 69% of survey respondents said layoffs are not likely at their companies during the next six months.

3. Banks are starting to hire IT staff, but they are in no hurry to fill open jobs, says Dice.com. Dice says banks are looking for IT professionals who can manage new technology or integration projects, but that they are taking from six to eight months to fill open jobs. This compares to three or four months to fill jobs prior to the recession. Dice said banks are being “really selective” and are looking for “exact matches” for their detailed job descriptions.

4. IT pros are getting paid slightly more than last year, says Janco Associates’ mid-year IT salary survey. Total mean compensation for IT pros has increased to $78,210 from $77,690 a year ago – a rise of less than 1%. However, most of the additional money is going to CIOs, and not their staffs. Compensation of CIOs in large enterprises rose 7.5% to $181,533, and in midsized enterprises it rose 3.7% to $169,303, Janco found. Lower-level IT pros, on the other hand, are experiencing reduced bonuses, frozen salaries and in some cases they are being asked to pay a greater portion of their healthcare costs, Janco said. One positive sign: companies are more willing to consider flexible hours and work schedules as a low-cost benefit for IT workers.

5. CIO confidence is up, according to a survey released in June by Robert Half Technology. The survey found that 10% of CIOs plan to expand their IT departments in the third quarter of 2010, while 4% plan to reduce staffing. The states with the most active IT hiring are expected to include New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. Overall, 81% of CIOs said they are confident in their companies’ growth prospects in the third quarter, while 40% said their firms are likely to invest in new IT projects in the next three months.

6. Job hopping is on the rise, prompting CIOs to worry more about IT staff retention. A recent report found that more Americans quit their jobs in the last three months than were fired. The rise in voluntary departures is prompting CIOs to worry about retaining their best IT staff. The Robert Half Technology survey found that 34% of technology executives are concerned about losing top IT performers in the next year, up three percentage points from last month. Similarly, 43% of CIOs say it is “challenging” to find skilled IT professionals today.

7. CIOs say networking and security top their list of hot IT skills. CIOs surveyed by Robert Half Technology said they had the hardest time filling jobs in networking, applications development and security. Other hot skills include software development, database management and help desk/technical support. Similarly, a recent survey of 400 U.K. recruitment consultants found that IT security skills were most in demand for permanent hires. The Report on Jobs, by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, also found that full-time staff with enterprise software and developer skills were in short supply.

8. Government, usually the safest sector of the economy in a downturn, has announced more job cuts this year than any other employer. Challenger, Gray & Christmas said government agencies and nonprofits announced more job cuts than any other industry segment in May. The sector shed 16,697 jobs in May, 12% more than the job cuts announced in April. All total, the sector has shed 93,470 jobs in 2010. What’s driving the cuts are state and municipality budget problems, which are likely to continue due to lower tax revenues and stagnant housing values.

Full Article: www.networkworld.com

Women-Owned Businesses Fueling Employment

WOMEN’S BUSINESS ENTERPRISE NATIONAL COUNCIL: WBENC

According to the Center for Women’s Business Research 2009 study, “the economic impact of women owned business in the United States, there are an estimated 8 million US business -currently 51% women owned with an economic impact of $3 trillion annually and job creation or maintenance of more than 23 million jobs-16% of all US jobs”.

The Federal Government established a 5% goal for procurement with women-owned businesses in 1994. As of 2008 the actual expenditures for Federal contracts awarded to WOSBs was $14.7 billion or 3.4% against a goal of 5%. The difference between current performance (3.4%) and the goal (5%) represents approximately $6.9 billion in contracts annually, which would significantly support the growth of women owned businesses.

Why is it important that the Federal Government reach and possibly exceed the 5% goal with women owned companies? It’s all about employment.

By 2018 the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that small businesses will create 9.7 million new jobs, with approximately 5 million to 5.5 million of those being created by women owned businesses. This represents over half of the new jobs in the small business sector and one third of the total new jobs that will be created nationwide over the next eight years.

Supporting small and woman-owned business is important to our nation’s job growth and economy.

Asocia Group is a Woman-Owned Enterprise (WBE), and has been WBENC certified since 2007 by the Greater Women’s Business Council(GWBC).

We are committed to fostering diversity and supporting other diversity and woman-owned businesses.

Asocia Group’s commitment to diversity:
www.asociagroup.com/WBENC

Health IT Funding To Create 50,000 Jobs

Federal dollars being pumped into grant programs to spur students to enter IT careers in the health care industry should help to create between 45,000 and 50,000 jobs over the next five years.

Speaking at the Health Information Technology (HIT) Conference here, Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, said a portion of $2 billion in discretionary spending under Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) is being targeted at education and training for electronic health record implementation. A large part of the training is for people to staff 60 regional extension centers, which are public, private partnerships that will assist rural hospitals and physician practices with 10 or fewer doctors in rolling out electronic medical records (EMRs) and supporting technology.

“There’s a shortage of workers who can staff these regional extension centers and provide the kind of support physicians and hospitals need to become meaningful users” [of EMRs], Blumenthal said.

Without specifying an amount, Blumenthal said the ONC has already handed out funding to 70 community colleges or other universities to create programs for workforce training for health information technology.

The HIT conference, hosted by the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium, focused not only how to create jobs in health information technology, but how that technology can reduce health costs while improving quality of care.

A final version of the government’s Notice of Proposed Rule Making helps define what type of technology should be used and spells out how $36 billion in incentives from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 should be paid out. A physician in private practice can receive up to $44,000 for rolling out EMRs and showing “meaningful use” of that technology.

Hospitals could potentially received millions of dollars in reimbursement.Physicians and hospitals that don’t roll out the EMR technology and prove that they are making “meaningful use” of it by 2015 face penalties in the form of reduced Medicare reimbursements.

“Our real challenge is to redesign health care so that it’s patient-centric, safe, effective, high quality for all individuals and affordable,” Griswold said. “That redesigned healthcare system will use health information technology to achieve those goals. She cautioned that IT is not a silver bullet, and that products need to be not only well designed but tested and carefully implemented with patient input.

The main hurdles to adoption included the ability to aggregate medical data and organize it, how to share it without mature, robust information exchange networks, and the security of data once it is online. John Moore, a managing partner with Chilmark Research, said that while 80% of people use the Internet to search for health information, a recent study showed that only 7% actually use PHRs.

Over the next two years, 58% of small physician practices plan to roll our EMRs, according to a recent survey. EMRs will share patient information between health care providers, ensuring a patient’s treatment medical history, existing conditions and prescription medication warnings are made automatically available to a treating physician.

Over the next year, Blumenthal said his office will focus on finalizing “meaningful use” regulations, which should be published later this spring, and implementing the Beacon Community Grant program, which will use $220 million to build out health IT infrastructures and regional information exchange capabilities in 15 communities.

Blumenthal said so far 130 counties throughout the U.S. have applied for the grant money. The ONC will also focus on helping hospitals and other health facilities use the National Health Information Network (NHIN), which is a set of standards, services and policies that enable secure health information exchange over the Internet.

“This is a major change to one of the most complicated systems in our society. ” Patrick said.“But, in a world where more and more average citizens are banking, shopping and communicating in an increasingly electronic world, it’s time for the health care system to catch up.”

Patrick pointed to New Zealand as the ideal for EHRs. “In New Zealand, when you are born, you get an electronic medical record. And that record is available in any hospital, clinic, doctor’s office, or pharmacy anywhere in New Zealand for the rest of your life,” he said. “That’s where I want to be. I want that kind of seamlessness, that kind of simplicity, that kind of efficiency.”

Full Article: CIO.com
Post by: Beth Frazier, Asocia Healthcare

Tech Hiring Is Ramping Up

The technology industry, an engine of innovation and U.S. prosperity for more than half a century, is accelerating its recovery from the recession with surging earnings that have spurred companies to sharply ramp up their hiring.

The latest evidence for the rebound came Thursday, when Internet giant Google Inc. posted a 37% profit jump for the first quarter and chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. reported a 34% revenue increase to record levels. The results follow the strong showing of bellwether Intel Corp., which Tuesday announced quarterly profit that nearly quadrupled on a 44% jump in sales.

The trio of results kicks off what is likely to be a strong earnings streak as tech spending by companies and consumers picks up. Next week, Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp., among others, are slated to report quarterly results. Tech-research firm ISI Group projects that overall revenues from such companies will rise more than 10% for the first quarter, compared with a 16% decline a year earlier. Meanwhile, Standard & Poor’s forecasts a 79% increase in tech earnings for the quarter from year-ago levels.

The growth has reached a level where tech companies are pushing to hire again, in some cases engaging in heated competition for talent. That’s a turnabout for the industry, which had a series of layoffs last year, when some tech giants, notably Microsoft Corp., had mass layoffs for the first time.

The hiring ramp-up began late last year, with demand for tech goods and services stabilizing after months of declines. At the time, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the Mountain View, Calif., company was ready to spend again, including on new recruits. On Thursday, Google said it hired 786 new employees in the first quarter and was just getting started.

“We expect to continue hiring aggressively through the year,” said Google Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette on a call with analysts. “We have a strong pipeline of candidates primarily focused on engineering and sales, and we are on-boarding them to fuel our growth agenda as fast as possible.”

Earlier this week Intel disclosed plans for what it called its first substantial hiring in five years. The company expects to hire 1,000 to 2,000 people in 2010, an Intel spokeswoman said. The Santa Clara, Calif., chip maker, which has trimmed about 20,000 workers from its payrolls since 2006, ended 2009 with 79,800 employees.

Cisco Systems Inc. in February said it plans to hire between 2,000 and 3,000 workers, after adding 2,100 employees in the three months ended Jan. 23, mostly through acquisitions. In total, the networking-gear maker employs about 66,000 workers.

The hiring isn’t limited to tech behemoths, with smaller Silicon Valley companies also diving headlong into the race for people. Twitter Inc. has added about 125 employees since last May for a total of 170, and will continue ramping up, said Chief Executive Evan Williams this week. The San Francisco company, which relocated to a new headquarters last year, will have to move again in the next year or so, he added.

In an indicator of the growing demand, tech-jobs Web site Dice.com said it now lists more than 62,000 tech positions nationwide, up nearly 22% from 51,000 a year earlier. Year-over-year growth in tech-job listings picked up in March, the first time job listings rose on an annual basis since December 2007, according to Dice.

The demand has turned some hires into all-out bidding wars again, reminiscent of last decade’s tech boom. Sam Shah, 30 years old, a San Francisco resident and computer science Ph.D., began job-hunting in February after the Silicon Valley start-up he was working hit some bumps. Within a week, he says he had job offers from five Internet companies including LinkedIn.

The tech hiring contrasts with a relatively weak U.S. labor market, with the national unemployment rate holding steady at 9.7% in March. Few other major employers have reported plans to add or call back workers. On Wednesday, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said it plans to hire nearly 9,000 U.S. employees, and CSX Corp., a major U.S. rail company, said it is calling back furloughed workers and even hiring new employees in some locations.

The recovery in the tech industry is broad, touching a diverse set of products and services from personal computers to online advertising. On Wednesday, research firms Gartner and IDC said global PC sales jumped more than 24% in the first quarter as consumers and businesses got back into the buying game.

“The tech recovery has started in the U.S. and around the world,” says Andrew Bartels, an analyst at Forrester Research. He estimates the U.S. technology market will increase 8.4% this year to $550 billion after shrinking 7.9% in 2009.

And the momentum isn’t dependent on just companies and consumers beginning to spend again on tech categories they had cut back on. Newer tech products such as videoconferencing systems and electronic medial records are also gaining traction. “That means this tech recovery has legs,” says Mr. Bartels.

Google’s results demonstrate why tech hiring has ramped up. The company’s Internet-ad business continued to improve during the first quarter as advertisers increased spending across geographies and products.

Full Article: Wall Street Journal
Post by: John Jeffers, Asocia Group

Cultivating Needed Tech Talent Among the Youth

If we keep going the way we are now, this year we will outsource one in four IT jobs to India, Russia and other countries that supply low-cost labor, according to the Hackett Group (HCKT), a trend that sends a message to young people contemplating technology careers: IT work is unstable. You can’t count on climbing any career ladder.

College freshman get it. In 2000, 5.2 percent of incoming students intended to major in computer science. By 2008, according to the latest data from the National Science Foundation, that number had plummeted to 1.5 percent.

The need for technology staff who work locally hasn’t gone away, however. Although some economists now warn of a near-jobless recovery, the number of U.S. professional and business services jobs, including those in IT, will grow 1 percent to 2 percent per year, according to Moody’s (MCO) Economy.com.

Yet CIOs are faced with a dry pipeline of entry-level staff. At the same time, tens of thousands of young people between the ages of 18 and 25 live in poverty in the major cities that are home to most of the available IT jobs. They’re too old for government social services programs that may have provided food and financial support when they were children. Now they seek work, but lack the training to land most jobs beyond serving food or cleaning offices. A college education usually isn’t an option because they haven’t taken the right high school classes or have dropped out. And, of course, they don’t have the money.

Matching the most promising of these young people with an IT opportunity solves two problems: It meets the urgent need for new technology workers and the crying need for pathways out of poverty. And so CIOs have been working with a handful of nonprofits to recruit candidates from the toughest neighborhoods in the nation to train for technology careers. Graduates of these youth training programs—the most notable of which are Year Up and NPower—get internships and often jobs at top firms. For the CIOs involved with these groups, it’s not just a feel-good way to give back. They’re tapping what had been an invisible talent pool and diversifying their staffs. They also like the ROI they get from investing in recruits who are hungry to learn by doing.

Give Back, Get Back
Two national nonprofits train urban students for IT careers, with help from CIOs

CIOs who want to give back to their communities while diversifying their staffs can volunteer to teach or mentor students through these nonprofits, which train urban young people for careers in IT. Companies can also donate funds or equipment, as well as sponsor events or internships.

Year Up
Founded in 2000, Year Up’s annual operating budget of $30 million goes to offering technical and professional training, college credits, educational stipends and corporate internships. More than 1,000 students are expected to participate in the group’s programs this year.
Where: Atlanta; Boston; New York; Providence, R.I.; San Francisco; and Washington, D.C.
Website: www.yearup.org/getinvolved

NPower
Formed in 1999 to provide low-cost IT services to other nonprofits, the group operates in 12 cities and provides training programs in six of them. NPower’s CIO Council helps guide the curriculum and provides feedback about corporate technology.

Technology Service Corps
Where: New York
Website: www.npower.org/training/ technology-service-corps

ITWorks
Where: Philadelphia
Website: www.npowerpa.org

Courtesy of CIO.com: Taking IT to the Streets

Outlook For Jobs Brighten- As Snow Thaws

It seems as though the snowstorms of 2010 have affected current employment conditions as they have kept people from working and potential employers from hiring. Many economists say many more jobs would have been added in February 2010.

Last month’s snowstorms likely kept the economy from adding jobs. Some of the most severe storms struck parts of the Northeast and Midwest during the pay period when the Labor Department collects its data. Weather was almost certainly behind a fall in the average workweek to 33.8 hours from 33.9 in January. About 1.1 million people were unable to work last month due to weather, compared with 300,000 in January.

The Labor Department’s closely watched employment report, released Friday, suggests the nation’s unemployment rate, which peaked at 10.1% in October, has hit a plateau as employers gain confidence in the economic recovery. The unemployment rate was flat at 9.7% last month, while a steady rise in temporary workers and job gains across a spectrum of private-sector industries showed companies are growing more willing to hire.

Upbeat signs in the labor market cheered Wall Street and sent oil prices higher. The new report suggests January’s drop in the unemployment rate wasn’t a fluke. Indeed, the new report also showed that the number of workers facing long-term unemployment fell.

“There’s a good chance we’re at the turning point for unemployment,” said Bruce Meyer, an economics professor at the University of Chicago. Mr. Meyer said Friday’s report was doubly encouraging because it showed that a steady drop in the unemployment rate since October was real. “It appears that last month’s decline was not a statistical anomaly,” he said.

There remain deep problems in the labor market, with 14.9 million still looking for full-time work, 8.8 million forced into part-time jobs and 1.2 million too discouraged to look for a job. But the report offers a glimmer of hope to demoralized workers who have suffered through the Great Recession.

The House of Representatives, still concerned the economy isn’t producing enough jobs, passed a $15 billion bill Thursday with tax cuts and credits to prod employers into hiring.

Despite the weather, several industries showed job gains. Manufacturing added 1,000 jobs, following a 20,000 increase in January. The professional and business-services sector, a broad category that includes legal work and consulting, added 51,000 jobs. Another encouraging sign: The temporary-help services sector added 47,500 jobs and has added 284,000 since September 2009, a sign employers need workers and may eventually add permanent positions.

Read full article at: The Wall Street Journal