No Boom In IT Hiring Anytime Soon

That's the dim finding from a survey of 148 executives at public companies conducted by executive search firm Christian and Timbers in August.

Seth Harris, a Christian and Timbers partner, says the survey, which represents all sectors, strongly reflects what's happening in the tech job sector, in part because the demographics of the surveyed are "tech heavy."

"The survey matches what we've been seeing," Harris says. "There's a need for people, but IT hiring is just not happening,"

Offshore and domestic outsourcing of IT activities such as application development and application hosting is a key reason why companies aren't hiring in IT, he says. "But the flip side is that there are opportunities for an uptake in jobs at those outsource companies--if people are willing to take substantial cuts in pay and have less responsibility," he says.

The survey showed that only 10 percent expect to hire in the next 30 to 60 days; 19 percent expect to hire in the next 3 to 6 months; 10 percent expect to hire in the next 6 to 9 months; 13percent expect to hire in the next 9 to 12 months; and 6 percent expect to hire in the second half of 2004. The rest--42 percent--don't expect to hire next year.

While nearly half of the executives admitted they were understaffed, 23 percent said they were correctly staffed, and 31 percent said they were actually overstaffed.

This story courtesy of InformationWeek.