2012 hiring freeze expected by many IT pros

Despite a rosy overall IT jobs forecast from a number of recruitment firms and online surveys, 2012 is likely to see continued hiring freezes at a lot of companies. While businesses everywhere are experiencing a growing need for IT expertise as the desire for projects grows, nearly a third are unprepared to resume hiring, according to InformationWeek's Outlook 2012 Survey.

InformationWeek queried 605 business tech professionals and found that three-fourths of them are seeing growing demand for new IT initiatives. This is a marked improvement over two years ago, when only half were witnessing such demand. The bottom line, according to the magazine: "Few business initiatives of any kind can move ahead these days without some IT implementation or innovation supporting or driving them, so this strong demand for tech projects bodes well for business expansion and investment overall."

There is continued improvement in the funding allotted to IT as well, with 56 percent of the professionals surveyed reporting that IT spending at their organizations will be up this year. Two years ago, less than half were so optimistic, and last year just a slight majority were.

Even though the survey found that 30 percent of IT professionals expect a continued hiring freeze, the picture remains positive overall as fewer organizations are planning to lay workers off. One-fourth of those surveyed said they are hiring, while a mere 14 percent could say so two years ago. Only 9 percent said they are downsizing, while 18 percent were in that position two years ago.

The disconnect between the growth in projects and growth in hiring can be explained in a number of ways, including the popularity of outsourcing, according to InformationWeek's Chris Murphy. "There's strong demand for mobile app development, but a lot of that work is outsourced because IT shops tend not to have those skills in-house," he writes. "Cloud computing software lets companies add IT capabilities without the same staff needs as in the past, and cloud infrastructure holds the same promise. Highly virtualized data centers (private clouds) will drive more automation of IT operations. So while the IT job market looks likely to continue thawing if the economy keeps improving, new hiring will come slowly."

For more:
- see Chris Murphy's article at InformationWeek

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