Hays Information Technology - January 2010
Public Sector
Hotspots
Helpdesk and Desktop candidates with solid and broad skill sets are sought. Employers have placed a greater emphasis on the first line of support to assist in resolving issues promptly and reducing the number of escalated calls. Most of these vacancies are permanent. Within the Federal and Queensland Governments contract positions are being replaced with permanent roles.
Within the development market, Sharepoint skills are sought. The public sector is moving into a .Net environment, using Sharepoint as their internal and external web portals in a bid to centralise web-based systems. Business Intelligence skills are also sought to better forecast, analyse and predict future spend and growth.
The coming quarter
Confidence is growing within the public sector's IT market. A number of changes within some government departments and one state's upcoming election will see some employers hold their recruiting activity this quarter. But others are actively reviewing their requirements and will recruit when necessary. As confidence improves, more projects are approved, which will result in high contractor demand both this quarter and next quarter. This also includes multiple roles for larger projects. Permanent government vacancies are also rising. Successful candidates are typically either new to government or are current contractors.
Executive recruitment
Activity within the executive market is steadily increasing. Some employers are adding new levels of management to their structure to enhance their strategic direction and leadership.
Employer trends
Government departments worked hard during 2009 to implement a faster recruiting process. Often now we are seeing recruitment rounds being cut to a four-week process from start to completion.
Within the development space we have seen a shift from contract work to fixed-term contracts.
Rates are starting to slightly increase, particularly for shorter-term contracts. While contractors were willing to adjust their rate expectations if necessary to secure a role, as demand for skills rises, these rate expectations will also rise.
Candidate trends
As confidence increases, candidates are waiting for longer-term contracts or permanent roles, rather than accepting the first short-term contract that becomes available. They are becoming less flexible in their salary expectations than they were for much of 2009.
While the number of candidates in the market is large, there are fewer quality candidates. Given the increasing number of jobs becoming available quality candidates are being quickly secured. As the commercial sector improves, we expect to see a candidate shortage in some high demand areas once more.
