Tech jobs and budgets defy economic gloom

IT budgets and staffing levels are forecast to defy the gathering economic gloom over the next 12 months.

Almost half of IT directors expect to increase IT staffing levels in that period, according to figures released by ReThink Recruitment.

The majority also said they would be maintaining or increasing the number of contractors they use and expected their project workloads to increase over the coming year.

And twice as many of the 47 respondents thought their IT budgets would be increased rather than cut.

Michael Bennett, ReThink director, said: "IT Directors are reasonably confident about the outlook over the next 12 months, despite lingering economic uncertainty.

"What you would normally expect to see in a downturn is IT departments shedding staff and utilising greater numbers of contractors. The focus on increasing permanent headcounts is a good barometer of robust demand over the longer term."

But Bennett did have some words of caution.

He said: "Obviously we are seeing in other areas of the economy, in banking for example, huge losses. We are not seeing that yet in IT, which is showing itself to be pretty robust. But if the economy continues to stall and interest rates don't go down then clearly IT jobs will not be immune."

The surprising figures contrast drastically with more ominous research by online recruiter Monster, which showed that IT vacancies advertised had decreased by 23 per cent since February and three per cent between June and July alone.

The number of new IT jobs advertised was down 12 per cent last month compared to a year earlier, despite there being an increase in jobs advertised across all sectors.

The figures were released in the recruitment company's July 2008 Employment Index which tallies job adverts from a number of recruitment websites, not just its own.