Published on the 20/05/2014 | Written by Beverley Head
Signs of a ramp up in ICT investment thanks to improved business confidence have emerged in the form of increased ICT hiring during the last quarter– but the 2014 Budget could well stomp the optimism…
Relatively strong demand for contract ICT workers, especially in NSW, Victoria and the ACT, could have been viewed as the herald for broader technology skills growth, including permanent hires – but last week’s Budget could put the kybosh on that.
Peter Acheson, chief executive officer of IT recruitment company Peoplebank, which produces a well-respected salary index each quarter said that following the appointment of a Liberal Government in 2013 there had been a resurgence of business confidence, which led to a push on ICT projects and skills. “There has been consistent improvement in business confidence and hiring,” said Acheson.
(That confidence however didn’t extend to providing people with salary increases – despite the uptick in demand during the quarter the year-long stagnation of ICT salaries continued.)
Acheson said that in spite of the relatively strong quarter there was now real concern that ICT demand would be mothballed while companies deliberated the impact of last week’s tough Budget, with executive uncertainty ballooning as weeks of political horse-trading would be needed before proposed changes could be enacted. “This has the potential to erode the confidence that was gained,” said Acheson.
He said that there had been signs that the skills organisations were looking for – in cloud computing, big data and business intelligence – were the foundations for digital transformation projects. Stalling those now could leave organisations at risk from more aggressive international competitors.
However, a report released last week by Gartner found that CIOs across Asia Pacific and Japan were forecasting that IT budgets would increase 0.9 percent this year; somewhat better than the 0.2 percent global average, but still far from exuberant. It seems just about everywhere is constrained to some degree in terms of ICT investment.
Surprisingly Acheson is more confident about demand for skills in the public sector than he is in the private sector, even though the Government has pledged to axe 16,000 jobs as it reins in costs.
“As full-time people leave the work still needs to be done, and contractors are hired,” says Acheson.
