A SURVEY released by Olivier Recruitment last week showed the Australian IT sector is missing out on the employment growth enjoyed by other industries.
The July report found the IT and multimedia sector was responsible for the 8.2 per cent drop in jobs advertised on the Internet. IT jobs fell 9.5 per cent and multimedia positions dropped 16.4.
According to Olivier Recruitment Group director Bob Olivier, the figures are in stark contrast to the building and construction industry, which is in recovery mode due to the Federal Government’s first home buyers’ scheme. Engineering and mining jobs were up 4 per cent.
“If you look at the non IT job market, our figures indicate a 12.6 per cent rise in job ads over the past year. There is real cause for optimism there,” Mr Olivier said.
In the past 12 months IT and multimedia jobs accounted for 94 per cent of the drop in jobs advertised on the Internet.
Mr Olivier said the recent IT skills shortage may have contributed to the fall in the technology sector.
“While our figures show an overall fall, there is a reasonably robust labour market. And although job ads have dropped in the tech economy, it was suffering from a skills shortage anyway,” he said.
Software development and management jobs were the most advertised in July, but both recorded an 8 per cent fall. Hardware systems jobs were advertised the least (1.8 per cent) but it was the only position to post an increase, with jobs rising by 5 per cent.
