Techies: Should you be job-hunting this January?

January is traditionally a time for job hunting but this year you'd be forgiven for thinking the prospects of moving onto bigger and better things are about as hostile as the weather. Instead, 2009 seems to be shaping up as a year of job cuts and rising unemployment as companies seek to cut costs to survive the downturn.

According to recent research, there's been a record drop in demand for staff in the UK and tech sector is no exception: IT and computing has seen demand for both permanent and contract staff fall significantly year-on-year.

Matt Smith, regional director for recruitment company Harvey Nash, is upbeat about job prospects for IT workers, however. "The strategic profile of IT is in far better shape than it was in 2001," after the dot-com bubble burst, he told silicon.com.

"In 2001 IT was very much seen as a cost and it was seen as the bad guy whereas I do believe that now IT in most organisations is seen as a business enabler so I think IT directors and CIOs have done a great job of raising the profile of IT - aligning it more to the business and being able to articulate what the business benefits are to IT," he said.

However, Smith admitted there is "a lot of nervousness" among IT workers, adding: "We are experiencing a higher proportion of roles than we would normally expect being cancelled or put on hold."

Fellow IT recruitment company Parity Resources has also seen evidence of nerves among both permanent and contract staff.

Alan Rommel, MD of Parity Resources, said: "On the permanent side people are very much sitting tight. People are seeking security."

But if the permanent IT recruitment business has been unseasonably quiet, Rommel said the contract side of the business has been busier than usual - which he puts down to companies being unwilling to commit to full hires in uncertain economic times.

The contracting boom is also identified by Sean Gallagher, a director at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC)and MD of IT recruitment company IT Human Resources, who likened the current tech jobs landscape to the housing market - with companies unwilling or unable to 'buy' techies being forced to 'rent' the skills they need instead.

But the picture is not entirely rosy for temps: Harvey Nash's Smith predicts...

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