Demand for IT pros shrank in 2001

By Amy Schurr
Network World Careers Newsletter, 05/20/02

If there ever was any doubt that the IT job market cooled considerably in 2001, the latest research from Information Technology Association of America should dispel it. According the trade organization, the IT industry lost 5% of jobs last year, or roughly 500,000 workers.

" Bouncing Back: Jobs, Skills and the Continuing Demand for IT Workers " reports that companies hired 2.1 million IT pros in 2001, but also dismissed 2.6 million IT workers. Those layoffs reduced the IT workforce from 10.4 million members to 9.9 million in early 2002.

Conducted for the ITAA by market research firm Market Decisions, the survey is based on phone interviews with 532 hiring managers. Here are some of the important findings:

*Reductions were spread evenly across the U.S., with the Northeast, South, Midwest and West each losing 5% of their total workforce.

*The South has the most IT workers - 3,406,519. That region took the biggest hit in terms of numbers of jobs lost, accounting for 34% of the total.

*Managers are optimistic about staffing, expecting a demand for 1,148,639 more IT workers in 2002. However, they expect 578,711 of those slots to go unfilled due to a lack of qualified workers.

*The hottest skills are C++, Oracle, SQL, Java and Windows NT, according to the ITAA/DICE Tech Skills Profile conducted by online recruiting firm Dice (www.dice.com/). The hottest skills within the networks and protocols job category are routers, TCP/IP and switching.

*There may be lots of talk of layoffs at IT vendors, but 92% of IT workers are employed by non-IT companies in a range of industries.

For more information, go to the ITAA's Web site (www.itaa.org/). From there, you can access a PDF of the executive summary and table of contents. You may also purchase the complete report from the site. Available after June 1, the survey costs $50 plus shipping for members and $75 plus shipping for nonmembers.