ICT vacancies hit all time low

The number of internet job advertisements for ICT professionals fell 24 percent over the past year to June 2012, according to the latest Department of Employment Education and Workplace Relations statistics.

Magnifying glass over employment advertisements

The decline is larger than that reported three months ago, when job advertisements for ICT professionals were down 18 percent over the course of the year to March 2012.

DEEWR's latest skilled internet vacancy indices (IVI) show there were a total of 11,079 vacancies for ICT professionals in June 2012, compared with 13,069 vacancies in March 2012.

Vacancies for ICT technicians - reported separately to ICT professionals - were also down by 22.3 percent over the year to June.

NSW led the falls in internet job ads for ICT professionals, registering an IVI of 61.4 out of 100. That is, online advertisements for NSW jobs were only 61.4 percent of the level they were in January 2006, when the IVI began.

The ACT, influenced by Budget tightening, continued to decline at an index of 93.3 at the end of June compared with 98.4 at the end of March.

However, vacancies in Tasmania and South Australia were slightly higher in June, and those in Western Australia were steady.

The Skilled IVI measures ICT vacancies based on online job listings on Seek, My Career, CareerOne and Australian JobSearch.

Tight market

While job advertisements for IT professionals are in decline, so are the number of suitable candidates for advertised roles, according to the Information Technology Contract & Recruitment Association (ITCRA).

On average, ITCRA reports six suitable candidates for each role advertised in the second quarter of 2012, dropping from a peak of eight available candidates in the first quarter of 2012.

Bounceback to come?

Recruitment consultancy Robert Walters' associate director of IT, Peter Bateson, expects hiring to increase in the third quarter, especially in those industries that were overly cautious in the first half of the year.

He also expects restarted projects and the release of new financial year budgets to spur employment prospects.