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Report Cites Highest IT Job Growth In 4 Years 176

Posted by Soulskill from the job-precipitation-from-the-cloud dept.
netbuzz writes "Employment research firm Foote Partners says U.S. labor statistics from last month reveal an increase of some 18,200 jobs in IT, which represents the largest such monthly jump since 2008. 'The overall employment situation in the U.S. is lackluster, in fact this is the fifth consecutive month of subpar results,' says David Foote. 'But the fact that more than 18,000 new jobs were created last month for people with significant IT skills and experience — and nearly 57,000 new jobs added in the past three months — is incredibly good news.'"
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Report Cites Highest IT Job Growth In 4 Years More

Report Cites Highest IT Job Growth In 4 Years

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  • Isn't the second derivative negative? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by feedayeen ( 1322473 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:08PM (#40909253)

    57 thousand new jobs in the last 3 months, with 18 thousand last month. This leaves 39k for the other 2 months, netting an average growth rate of 19.5k jobs/month for those 2, in other words, the rate of growth is is nearly 10% slower than it was a month ago.

    • Parenthetically, I'd like to thank you for using "second derivative" in a sentence; I really miss calculus.

  • In real jobs or fake ones? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by crazyjj ( 2598719 ) * on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:09PM (#40909271)

    Is this report counting the *real* programming and IT jobs, or just the ones that companies post with ridiculous qualifications, just so they can run to Congress and claim they can't find American personnel to fill them and get more H1-B visas?

    • Re:In real jobs or fake ones? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stanlyb ( 1839382 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:13PM (#40909303)
      The truth is, if there is an ad, and if this ad stays for longer than 1 month, then it is fake ad, and there is no real need for this job position.

      • Re:In real jobs or fake ones? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Chrono11901 ( 901948 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:22PM (#40909425)

        It is extremely difficult to find highly skilled mid to senior level software engineers (here in NYC at least) unless you plan to pay over the top to seal someone away from another company. It seems to take at minimum a month to find someone, and thats if your a company with good benefits and great salary

        • Re:In real jobs or fake ones? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by TheRealMindChild ( 743925 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:30PM (#40909549) Homepage Journal
          As the perspective from one of those senior level software engineers, for a job worth taking, I almost certainly have to move. My kids go to yet another school, my wife has a pile of friends that become facebook aquaintences, and I am chin deep in new work for however long. If you want me to deal with that, you are going to pay me. Not only pay me what I am worth, but also for the hassle of having to deal with all of the drama that goes with it. I find most places are simply not willing to accommodate.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Stiletto ( 12066 )

            Even if I don't have to move, you generally have to pay significantly more than I'm getting now, period. Welcome to "hiring 101". Why would I change jobs for a 2% bump in salary? If I'm that good, I'm getting yearly bumps by that amount already.

            • Re:In real jobs or fake ones? (Score:4, Insightful)

              by wjousts ( 1529427 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:55PM (#40909863)
              And a 2% yearly bump is really (barely) treating water. Inflation is usually more than that.

            • Yea come work for us, we tend to do 5-10% annual salary bumps for the people who carry their own weight and then some...

              I've been having trouble finding a solid backend linux programmer for 80k for about 3 months now.

              • I hope you aren't in NYC or Silicon Valley, because that is almost entry level in those places.

                • Nope. Baltimore. We are looking for a mid-level candidate. 80k is a lot of money in Baltimore. Not for senior people, though no one really wants to pay a developer 150k. Even still, I have only seen a couple 150k candidates that I'd be willing to hiring (actually, only one).

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by gmhowell ( 26755 )

                    That's a horrible salary. Why would someone work in Baltimore for that much when you can drive an hour to DC and make much more?

                    Sorry, while that may be a good chunk of money if you're willing to live with the sodomites and savages just off of 40, if you want to live in a civilized neighborhood, you have to pay a bit more.

                    • Last I checked, DC people were moving into my old place because the rent was cheaper. I had a friend who shared a room with 5 people, and paid 1k himeself to share a bathroom and kitchen. I had a 2 floor window, and NY style loft for 1.4k at my last place, and a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom apartment all for myself for 1.4k at my current place.

                      I did the DC grind for a while, but the people get on my nerves.

                      No need to deny the cultural DC/Baltimore divide--we all know its there. Last I checked the politicians (r

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by gmhowell ( 26755 )

                      All I'm getting at is that you cannot dissociate Baltimore from DC when trying to hire. Depending on where people are willing to live, and what kind of commute they will accept, a Baltimore firm will have to compete with DC firms for employees. If you are having trouble hiring people, I suggest that they are unwilling to accept that salary due to the entire package being better just an hour away. (Or less if you are in the MD DC burbs instead of NoVa).

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Stiletto ( 12066 )

                I don't know what geographic region you are in, but if you're in Silicon Valley, you're going to have to offer about 1.5-2X that for someone "solid".

          • HR departments are used to the great recessions still when they had 100 applicants for each job posted. They are used to offering $40,000 a year, no relocation, and requiring 6 years of experience and prefering a masters degree, because frankly from 2008 - 2011 people out of work would jump at it!

            It is now ballencing out but the companies are cheapskates and accountants and HR people are willing to wait it out to find somebody desperate who will jump. Also realize in many ways people are paid less than they

            • Back in my Fortune 100 days, I used to conduct technical interviews, and my "pool" was limited by what HR & manager sent me. Most often it was crap. I suspect this must have been caused by the salary range they were throwing out (which I had no control over). The fun part was, we hard to hire someone. So even though I thought they were all crap, I had to choose from that pool.

              I love Joel's saying that A's hire A's, and B's hire C's, but in my case all I was given was D's.

              Even better were the c

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by router ( 28432 )

              We call this practice, bottom feeding....

              Makes you wonder why HR would do this if their hires will jump ship at the earliest opportunity...Oh w8, its HR. Lowest dollar hire wins! Id10ts.

              andy

            • HR should not be looking at technical resumes. Period. Managers and colleagues working on the actual software need to look over the resumes and do all the vetting.
        • There is a saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me, Fool me three times, i am an idiot.
          Or if you need translation, when your method of finding highly skilled developers are fruitless....then something is wrong with you, not the market, and not the tons of unemployed professionals.

          • When is the last time you tried to hire a highly skilled IT professional? I think you must not be familiar with the turf.

        • Define great salary.

          You are in nyc. I would consider great to be at least 150k, for someone with 5ish years.

        • No it is rather easy, that is unless you want someone to move all of the way across the country just to plug into a closer internet connection in NY.

          It simply amazes me that companies complain that they cannot find rockstar engineers and or programmers. I an interested in your job, however I am not interested in your job in NY.

          I am a systems engineer, thousands of servers and in the last three years of working here I have never actually physically seen one of them. Even funnier they are not even located in

        • I have people that want to know if I would take this great job in San francisco or NYC for $125000 start for the year when I am in Florida making $80-$85k. They wonder I think sometimes why I am not interested.... I think we all the know the reasons without me listing them.

      • Re:In real jobs or fake ones? (Score:5, Informative)

        by jrj102 ( 87650 ) * on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:23PM (#40909435) Homepage

        I've filled a dozen or so positions in the last 4 years, most of them took 2-3 months to find a qualified applicant. Only once did I hire someone inside of a month. So while I am not arguing that there are a lot of fake job ads out there, the assertion that any 30+ day aged ad is fake is demonstrably false. Larger companies take time to fill positions, and with the economy slumping there is pressure to find exactly the right applicant even if that means the spot lay unfilled for a couple months (often at great pain) rather than hire someone "with potential" as was the common practice 5-10 years ago.

        • Re:In real jobs or fake ones? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by afidel ( 530433 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:45PM (#40909725)

          See, to me your post is indicative of exactly what's wrong in IT hiring today. If you're looking for exactly the "right" person it probably means your making people play buzzword bingo. This is the lazy way to hire IT people and it does nothing to assure that you actually get a good candidate. Instead you need to hire someone with the correct level of experience for the job, some familiarity with subject matter of the position, and the ability to learn. That is ALL the qualification you should realistically need since even if they've used the exact same product at the exact same version level it's likely that your environment has enough differences to their previous experience that it might as well have been a different product. It's never taken me more than two weeks to hire someone. In fact the only position at my employer I would have trouble filling quickly is the one we outsourced after having four people in 3 years fail in our environment (we needed someone with Oracle and MS SQL experience and knowledge of our ERP platform, very very niche).

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by AuMatar ( 183847 )

            It's not just people playing Buzzword Bingo. It's just hard to find *good* senior devs. At the startup I last worked for, we would interview a dozen people, be willing to hire maybe 3 of them, and get turned down by most of them. If you're looking for above average candidates (and I don't want to bother with below average ones) then you're going to have a wait on your hands. We had constant open recs, but it took months to fill one.

            • If you are getting turned down, PAY MORE!

              I mean shit, don't you business people understand the free market?

              Demand goes up, PRICES GO UP!

              God I want to go club a baby seal with a puppy.

              • Another important part of the free market is that if you don't want to pay more, you can do so and keep the position open.

                When people aren't taking your offers, you should do your best to be more competitive, but maybe money isn't the problem. Now, there's such thing as an offer that is way too low, but there's plenty of reasons to choose a position that doesn't bring in the most money. This is especially true when looking for senior devs. I could get an extra 10K in some of the best paying employers of the

                • For people who are looking to for a job, with these skills, money is everything. Companies are soo easily bought out, positions made redundant, so much churn. All that short term gain thinking is trickling down...

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by AuMatar ( 183847 )

                    Not at all. I'm happy to take a smaller offer if the work is more interesting and the workplace looks more fun. I walked away from 60K in bonuses when my company got bought out, because I couldn't stand to work for the new owners (I had previously).

                    The trick is that you don't need to be the highest, but you can't be out the low end either. I had a job offer last week that was perfect- right location, interesting work, a chance to mentor a bunch of young devs (something I enjoy doing), looked like a fun

          • And just to add something, it takes one month to find proper applicant, and it takes one month of work, to know for sure, if he/she is good fit.

          • It's called top grading. Hire people infrequently (aka only hire the best), and fire often (aka fire those hire mistakes pronto). Top grading is one of those buzz words, but if you have a large enough team it will build a lean and mean team of kick ass people. Kick ass people means none of those people who you wonder what they are doing, because they are in fact not doing anything.

        • If you need 2-3 months to find a qualified applicant, do you want me to tell you how much an applicant needs to find a proper job? 5-6 months at least. So, my friend, who is going to compensate him during this period? You maybe? LOL, who am i kidding. You are IDIOT.

        • So while I am not arguing that there are a lot of fake job ads out there,

          One type of fake job listing is the kind where they already have someone they want to hire for the job, but the company has a requirement that the job be posted. This is very common in academia, but it happens in other sectors as well.

          It's a way of "promoting" someone at a company that has a freeze on raises. The CEO says "no raises" but there's somebody's that's going to walk unless he gets 10% more. A new job is listed with a sa

      • The truth is, if there is an ad, and if this ad stays for longer than 1 month, then it is fake ad, and there is no real need for this job position.

        Not really. Positions for which there is a real need can stay open forever due to HR and management demanding Sr. level skills with Junior-level pay (or because they want to fill a Junior position but do not want Junior applicants.). I've seen this a lot.

        Yes, the company goes on with IT/devs putting a lot more hours (and shit not getting done in time) because the positions are not getting filled. And since there is almost never good visibility when it comes to the cost and ROI of software and IT infrastr

      • Most of the "impossible" job ads I know about are due to government regulations concerning government jobs and some crooks wanting to do their nephew/friend/younameit a favor. It works like this around here:

        Public Servant A wants to do this "favor". He can't simply hire his buddy, (most) government jobs have to be publicly announced and hiring itself is a matter of a few people approving the applicant. So what our friend here does is to dream up impossible requirements. No older than 25, at least 10 years o

        • I'm a public servant, and most of what I've seen has either been a.) impossible requirements only if you haven't been on the project (e.g. the team has grown too much and needs an additional project manager, but it needs to be somebody who knows the project, or an attempt to convert a current contractor to a federal position), or b.) extremely general requirements, and they honestly want to find someone who can do the job. Maybe I've just been lucky in my government experience, but I've seen far more corru

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by jeauxkewl ( 1465425 )
      I just used my mod points or I'd have modded this one up. Don't forget some companies are laying people off and moving jobs to lower paying areas of the country where they can hire less experienced folks at lower wages. They lay off and then re-hire and claim job creation.

    • Re:In real jobs or fake ones? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:17PM (#40909353)
      IT is a stupid classification anyway. It includes way too many different types of jobs. It could include everything from people working at the IT help desk all the way to people designing operating systems. That would be like looking at the "manufacturing sector" but also including the people who design the machines the manufacturing plants use. Sure an increase in manufacturing jobs means they need more machines, but you still shouldn't count them in the same lot.

    • For entry level jobs at least other places do say Associates or Bachelor Degree OR X years of work experience.

      Any ways for most IT jobs I say Associates + other NON Degree class loads should be a the max.

      As college Degrees don't really fit to well in to IT and there needs to be bridge from NON degree classes / on the job leering to a GED like system.

      http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-03-11/news/ct-oped-0311-page-20120311_1_college-costs-rise-kayla-heard-college-attendance [chicagotribune.com]

    • Right. At first I had an errant fantasy that companies were finally realizing that outsourcing their core competency really wasn't a good idea, (I should have known better) but reading TFA it sounds like a combination of (a) "swiss army knife" IE, one person to get burned out doing the work of an entire department at tremendous cost savings, and (b) prepubescent Cloud Bubble ramp-up. So, really, nothing new here.

      • And really. Since when are architects called "swiss army knives"? Oh, when they have to do the actual work, not just the design. Never mind.

  • Good News, Everyone! (Score:3)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:13PM (#40909313) Homepage Journal

    They're hiring more IT professionals to feed to crocodiles and we have a contract to deliver them!

    they can bite my shiny, metal cabinet

  • And you may get paper superstars that say the have a big skills list and know lot's of buzzwords.

    Any ways asking people to do the work of 2-3 people can lead to burn off, being spread too thin, and the hit by a bus issues where you can get be a real hard place.

  • Read the fine print (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:29PM (#40909523) Journal
    for people with significant IT skills and experience

    And the only way to get most of those skills or experience is to be employed in the industry and working for companies who are willing to train you. People coming out of school or switching careers need not apply.

    This goes along with the 2012 report from ManPower (which just came out) which says more than half of the U.S. employers surveyed say their pay scales are not in line with what IT workers want, which makes it hard to attract and retain staff.

    The report goes on to say that many companies have scaled back on recruitment benefits such as relocation costs.

    In summary, you need to have years of experience in cutting-edge technology, willing to work for pay which employers admit isn't up to par and able to pay for your own relocation.

    Gee, wonder why people are saying they can't find people to fill positions.

    • Re:Read the fine print (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jrj102 ( 87650 ) * on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:34PM (#40909603) Homepage

      This is a fair point. The job market is actually quite good if you have a decade or two of experience, but it's abysmal if you're just starting your career. It's hard to notice the latter when you continue to get headhunters calling a couple times a week, so it's no wonder you're seeing such diametrically opposed views in this thread with regard to the state of the economy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Stiletto ( 12066 )

        If you're right out of school, go for an internship or something--anything to get work on the resume. You won't be paid as if you had 10 years of experience, so be prepared to get a few roommates or live with your parents---just like we all did when we were just out of school.

      • To be fair, I have 5 new job listings in my email from headhunters, and I haven't had my resume online in the past 2 years. They are going that far back to find candidates, granted however, only 1 of those 5 is even close to my pay range -- the rest are looking for about half what I would ask, and while I have three times the experience they want, the pay 4 of 5 are offering is about what I was making straight out of college -- 20 years ago.

  • A demotion is a "new" job. (Score:3)

    by PeanutButterBreath ( 1224570 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:38PM (#40909631)

    "Incredibly good news" should be some combination of rising employment and rising incomes.

  • The true jobs picture.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by erp_consultant ( 2614861 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @04:43PM (#40909695)
    Despite the somewhat rosy job numbers there is a sobering reality in today's job market. If you are very experienced and have good contacts there are lots of jobs right now in IT. I get emails from recruiters every week it seems. But if you are just out of school or are not highly specialized then your options are much more limited because now you are competing against cheap foreign labor for programming jobs. Many times I have sat in meetings where we are looking at the resume of a recent grad and quickly realize that we could hire someone from India for 1/3 the price. Of course the quality of the work from the people in India is often sub par (at least in my experience) but to the people that control the money it looks like a no brainer. They hire the person from India. It's only when you gain more experience and skills that are very hard to find that the India option is no longer viable. At that point you have more control over how much you can charge for your services and potential employers have a vastly smaller pool of people to choose from. The challenge for the new grads is how to bridge that gap and it's a vexing problem. Gone are the days when IBM would hire you out of college and give you lots of training and a job for life. Now they expect you to already have the skills and you're only one bad quarter from getting laid off.
  • New jobs added, yes... but I bet they're still not filling them because of a huge disconnect between IT and Recruiting/HR. "We need MOAR H1B's!!!!" -Battle cry of every company inept at hiring IT talent.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TheSync ( 5291 )

      The H1B Visa 2013 cap was reached in June, 2012. That is 65,000 under the "regular" quota and 20,000 more who have a Master's degree or better.

  • I just hired a new guy a month ago. It took about two months to fill the position. I interviewed a lot of subpar candidates and extended an offer to one guy who ended up taking a job elsewhere. Within the organization we have hired half a dozen IT positions in the last six months. Over the next year we are going to fill another dozen.

    To people who say finding good candidates is easy, while it might be some what true for entry level positions, mid-level to senior positions are hard to fill. Even if you

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