ARN

IT job ads down

Industry expert claims falls are largely due to Gershon review

IT jobs departed from the national trend and fell in September thanks largely to Gershon job cuts, according to the latest results of the Olivier Job Index.

While the overall number of job ads grew by 3.58 per cent, IT-specific positions dropped by 0.8 per cent over the same period. This represented a year-on-year fall of 48.53 per cent in the IT jobs market.

IT jobs for graduates were up 74 per cent in the month, but they remained at half the level they were 12 months ago.

Olivier Group director, Robert Olivier, said the sweeping changes made by the Gershon review and the Federal Government were largely to blame for the most recent figures.

“All that loss is attributable to the ACT. It is down -20.39 per cent, which is a very large number, and that is all down to the Gershon review. If that decline in ads wasn’t there, we’d be in positive territory,” he said.

Although agreeing the overall jobs market and economy were improving, Olivier said IT was also suffering from industry-specific woes.

“As sectors go, this one is more affected by global conditions. Many have got global parent companies and they’re probably more cautious and are feeling more pain in other parts of their businesses around the world,” he said.

Olivier’s comments come amid a series of major vendor consolidations being finalised abroad with Cisco announcing a bid to acquire Tandberg and Avaya announcing a $US900 million bid for Nortel’s enterprise business.

“When you do read what’s going on in the US you think, ‘my God, it’s scary’,” he said.

“When business investment goes up, I’ll be happy. But I don’t see IT turning the corner this side of Christmas.”

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the ARN comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: Gershon Review, IT job ads, olivier group, olivier job index
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events.
ARN Distributor Directory
Find distributors by name | vendor | location
Channel Deals
/deals/aca-pacific/357_sap-business-objects-crystal-reports-2008-defy
ACA Pacific

Increase Your Profit Margins with Tandberg Data RDX Cartridges!

More details »
ARN Vendor Directory
Find vendors by name | category

iAsset is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales,marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.