Aust IT execs on the jobhunt?

Grant Montgomery, managing director at E.L Consult, told iTnews that it had been hoping for a “slow, continuous build” in demand for IT executives. “IT appears [to be] one of the most popular areas to cut your costs in order to get improvement in the bottom line,” Montgomery said.

According to results of the Index, the fall in demand cancelled out the gains made the previous month. “The government sector was to blame for all of the losses, with every state and territory except for Tasmania and the Northern Territory falling,” the Index stated.

Overall, the survey found that demand for executives across all categories dropped by 14 percent over the previous month.

Montgomery said that there was some “traditional end of financial year burnout” that accounted for some of the drop in demand. A rise in the Australian dollar, the threat of terrorism and SARS were other factors he cited.

“Companies are still retrenching management because this results in the immediate improvements to the bottom line,” Montgomery said. “This is good in the short-term for the shareholder's dividend cheque, but in the longer term means companies are not improving through growing their product range or customer service.”

IT job titles in the Index included chief information officers, MIS managers, network managers, specialist programmers, and business systems analysts.