Economic Outlook: IT driving more employment gains
Mike Seemuth
2011-03-18 12:00:00 AM
South Florida companies appear increasingly inclined to hire more workers to handle their information-technology needs.
An annual survey of information technology executives at South Florida companies by Boca Raton-based staffing agency ProTech found stronger demand for information technology workers now than a year ago.
ProTech, a specialty agency that places workers with skills in such computer specialties as software programming and website development, surveyed 742 executives in charge of information technology at area companies and got 132 responses.
The survey found that 37 percent of IT executives at area companies, with titles ranging from director to chief information officer, are planning to hire workers this year, up from 30 percent who had hiring plans a year ago. Only 3 percent of the respondents plan to reduce the number of IT workers on their payrolls this year, compared with 7 percent who were planning layoffs of such employees a year ago.
The annual ProTech survey also found that South Florida companies, on average, boosted their annual budget for information-technology spending by 8.5 percent this year, up from a 6 percent increase last year.
“It’s definitely trending in a positive direction,” and that is “not surprising to me as we have been increasingly busy,” Deborah Vazquez, chief executive officer of ProTech, said in an e-mail.
A Canadian company called Wanted Technologies, which scours online job listings to identify job market trends, also sees a strengthening market in South Florida for computer specialists.
Quebec City-based Wanted reports that the number of online postings for IT job openings in South Florida totaled 1,710 in February, up from 1,298 in the same month last year, a 31.7 percent increase.
Statewide data from Wanted show that the number of posted job openings for computer specialists grew during the 12 months ended in February by 100 percent for electronic commerce conductors, by 75 percent for IT-oriented nurses and by 59 percent for website developers.
But Wanted also reported that while the monthly number of posted job openings for IT workers in Florida is running above 6,000, the number remains below the pre-recession peak near 9,000 in 2007.
Original Article Published in Daily Business Review
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