To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://management.silicon.com/careers/0,39024671,39169282,00.htm

Want a new job? No thanks, say techies
Why the IT crowd are staying put...

By Natasha Lomas

Published: Tuesday 27 November 2007

Employers looking to recruit IT staff are facing tough times ahead, says recruitment industry body ATSCo, as the number of techies prepared to change jobs has fallen dramatically.

The proportion of IT workers looking for a new job or open to changing their existing one has dropped to 28 per cent in the last quarter, compared to close to half (42 per cent) a year ago, according to research from SkillsMarket/Association of Technology Staffing Companies which polled 5,000 workers.

Skills Survey 2007

Find out the exclusive results of this year's silicon.com Skills Survey:

♦  Are CIOs getting less cash?
♦ How the staffing crisis is deepening
♦ How techie salaries are faring
♦ Offshoring still a hot potato
♦  Banks hardest hit by staff crisis
♦ Industry falling out of love with IT grads

This shrinking pool of IT candidates could exacerbate skills shortages, said ATSCo, and may also drive wages up as employers compete to win the best staff on offer.

Ann Swain, chief executive of ATSCo, said in a statement: "Demand for IT skills is still high, so if people are reluctant to change jobs employers may need to offer more generous compensation packages than they have budgeted for in order to get the skills they need."

Greater levels of job inertia among techies may also have implications for training since workers are more likely to acquire new skills by changing jobs, meaning employers may have to spend more on training, said ATSCo.

One of the reasons IT staff may have become less keen to move on could be down to the increasing value of share options they have acquired, it added.

Swain said: "Share options in web start-ups are potentially much more valuable now. People have seen the big web 2.0 acquisitions and think the company they work for might be next. It's definitely had an impact on labour market mobility."

Expanding training opportunities and boosting the skills of the UK workforce is an ongoing focus for government. The Department for Innovation, Skills and Universities this week announced an expansion to its business training support programme, Train to Gain, which includes a funding boost for SME management training - from £4m per year to £30m per year, which it says will support some 60,000 key directors and managers in around 42,000 companies over the next three years.