2012 Hiring and Spending Surveys

A new survey from Dice Holdings Inc. finds almost two-thirds of companies may be hiring IT professionals in 2012 and the risk of layoffs remains remote. Meanwhile, Gartner Inc. revised downward its global IT spending forecast.

Focal Points:

• According to a survey of almost 1,200 U.S. IT-focused hiring managers and recruiters by Dice, some 65 percent of the hiring professionals said their companies or clients expect to add technology professionals in the first half of 2012. Moreover, about a quarter (27 percent) of those hiring are considering expanding their staffs by more than 20 percent in the first six months of the year. Most sought after are those with six to 10 years experience. 42 percent of the hiring managers and recruiters predict that salaries for new hires would grow in the coming year – a drop of five percent from the predictions made in May 2011. The time required to fill in open positions has grown longer, according to respondents. 57 percent of those respondents that said it takes longer to hire tech professionals attributed this delay to a shortage of qualified talent while 31 percent attributed the slowdown to concerns about the economy.
• Dice also found that the risk of layoffs continues to be remote. 16 percent of respondents that are corporate hiring managers stated layoffs are likely in their firms in the first six months of 2012. Additionally, 38 percent of hiring managers and recruiters expect that voluntary departures will increase in 2012, which is down from 43 percent who registered concerns in mid-2011. Expectations for salaries are mostly unchanged from last spring, which for the most part means pay will be flat or slightly higher than previously. 
• Gartner has slashed its global IT spending forecast from a growth of 4.6 percent to 3.7 percent. The biggest drop was in computing hardware spending, which shrank from 8.6 percent projected growth in the third quarter to 5.1 percent currently. Dropping around one percent each were enterprise software, IT services, and telecom equipment spending which fell to 6.4 percent, 3.1 percent and 6.9 percent respectively. Telecom services spending decreased slightly to 2.3 percent.  The stated rationale for the shrinkage was the uncertain global economy, the euro zone sovereign debt crisis and the disruptions on the hardware supply chain from last year's flooding in Thailand on hard-drive production.

Experton Group believes the outlook for IT hiring and spending for 2012 is still more positive than last year's and is stronger than most other sectors in the U.S. and globally. With the transformations occurring in the markets and in IT operations, IT executives need to be selective on hiring and ensure that they are positioning themselves properly for the long term and have eliminated succession planning gaps as much as possible. Even though baby boomers will not be rushing for the exit doors in droves in 2012, IT executives should be protecting themselves from exposures to critical gaps – either through hiring or retraining. IT executives that will be constrained by a shortfall in funding for needed hardware or software acquisitions should consider financing options. The major equipment financing organizations are aggressively pursuing strategies to get IT executives to lease from them and given capital constraints today this should not be ignored. IT executives should work with their financial teams to carefully evaluate these options, along with the traditional ones, before making acquisition decisions.