Westchester’s IT job market strong
A Pace University economic analyst who tracks Westchester job-market trends in information technology expects IT hirings here in 2010 to show double-digit improvement from the last two years.
That forecast follows a recent fourth quarter in which the county’s IT market rebounded from its “sluggishness” in 2009, according to analysts for the quarterly Pace/SkillPROOF IT Index report. The Pace University-generated index separately tracks job openings in Westchester County and in Manhattan, using data obtained by SkillPROOF Inc. based on a selection of 130 blue-chip companies from a cross-section of major industries.
In Westchester, the IT index nearly doubled its value in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter of 2009, jumping from 43 to 85. In Manhattan, where the quarterly index jumped from 43 to 63, an increase in job postings was seen in all but one of the 11 standard IT job categories defined by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In Westchester, the increase in job listings was less evenly distributed. Pace analysts said only five job categories showed signs of improvement while one remained flat and five declined slightly.
Companies in Westchester showed especially strong demand for computer programmers, for which job postings rose more than 130 percent, and computer research scientists, for which postings rose 110 percent.
“My guess is that in the past two or three quarters, demand for those two (job categories) was kind of low,” said index analyst Farrokh Z. Hormozi, Pace professor of economics and public administration. “Employers were trying to save time and save money in categories that are not really crucial.”
The Westchester index also showed fourth-quarter improvement in demand for software applications, IT managers and systems analysts. The greatest decline in demand was for network administrators.
“Technology can help cut costs during a downtrend and drive a business during a recovery,” Sunil M. Verma, vice president for information technology at Macy’s Inc. and chief information officer for CIOs Without Borders, said in a statement accompanying the index report. “During the last year we’ve seen non-IT companies increasingly turn to technology to streamline their operations.
“In the fourth quarter there also seemed to be resurgence in IT investing to drive market share increases,” Verma said. “Cloud computing appears to be keeping the demand for database experts and web developers strong. Recognition of the power of social media and internal knowledge sharing has resulted in increased budgets in corporate marketing and communications departments, and the demand for developers with portal or smart phone application experience is high.”
In Westchester, the composite Pace index shows the IT job market peaked in summer 2007 and bottomed out in the third quarter of 2009 before the fourth-quarter rebound raised demand to levels not seen since the third quarter of 2008. Hormozi said he expects that job market will improve more this year.
“My feeling is that overall we are going to see a better than 10 percent increase relative to the last two years,” he said.
0 Comments