ICT jobs drop in December

Demand for ICT professionals across Australia slid 2.6 percent in December, falling a total of 25 percent in the past 12 months, Government data has revealed.

Empty chairs

According to the Department of Employment Education and Workplace Relations' (DEEWR) latest skilled internet vacancy indices (IVI), there were a total of 12,217 ICT vacancies throughout Australia last month.

The Skilled IVI measures ICT vacancies from Jan 2006 to December 2011 based on online job listings on Seek, My Career, CareerOne and Australian JobSearch.

Last month, the DEEWR identified 12,749 ICT vacancies in November. After including December data in its trend series, the department revised the November figure to 12,537 and reported a 2.6 percent month-on-month drop in vacancies.

For comparison, across all tracked professions, vacancies dropped 0.1 percent in December and 8.4 percent year-on-year.

The DEEWR's overall Skilled IVI -- a two-month leading indicator of employment growth -- fell 0.6 percent in December 2011 and 7.4 percent over the year.

Demand for construction trades and ICT professionals experienced the strongest decline over the year, with the DEEWR reporting drops of 32.5 percent and 24.9 percent respectively.

On the other hand, demand for science professionals and veterinarians rose 23.5 over the year, while demand for automotive and engineering trades rose 13.5 percent and engineers, 10.9 percent.

A five year perspective of vacancies for all states and the ACT shows ICT vacancies are well down on a peak period around January 2008.

DEEWR set a base index as 100 for the number of employment ads in January 2006, and noted that in February 2008 when the number of vacancies peaked at 163.7 (or 63.7 percent higher than January 2006).

There was a second smaller spike in December 2010, registering an overall index of 109.2.

A later, the vacancy index for ICT professionals was just 82.0 (or 82 percent of the level at Jan 2006). With exception of the Northern Territory, all States and Territories saw declines in ICT vacancies.

Although NSW has the most vacancies, the trend in ICT jobs are at a record low index of 65.6.