IT jobs grew by 8,800 in April, according to figures released by the U.S. Department of Labor in April, representing the largest net monthly job gain for IT since the Wall Street financial crisis began.
But hang on a minute before you draw that big sigh of relief.
While IT employment analysis firm Foot Partners noted strength among several bellwether IT job categories, CEO David Foote said he believes the IT job market will never return to the dynamics that existed before the financial crisis on Wall Street.
“I am more convinced than ever that we will never return to the sort of labor marketplace for IT professionals that existed before 2008,” he said, in a statement. “It just isn’t going to happen, for a lot of reasons that are not necessarily bad for IT or for businesses.
“In fact this economic recession is probably the best thing that ever happened to IT organizations who have been struggling for years to become more relevant to the enterprise by transforming themselves into agile, flexible, nimble entities.”
In terms of the Labor Department’s April numbers, Foote Partners noted that the Management and Technical Consulting Services segment of IT jobs added 7,300 during April, bringing to 25,500 the total net job gain during the past seven months for the category.
“This jobs expansion in the IT service industry wasn’t too difficult to foresee given the severity of global economic conditions and the sense of caution that is persists among the 2,000 organizations we speak with regularly in compiling our benchmark research,” said David Foote, CEO and chief research officer at Foote Partners, in a statement.
“The tougher call was anticipating the strength and pervasiveness of the volatility in the skills and specialized IT talent marketplace,” he added. “There’s a level of unpredictability out there right now that is somewhat unique in the 20 years of so we’ve been scrutinizing the IT labor market as researchers and industry analysts.”
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