THE number of information technology job advertisements in Western Australia fell almost 10 per cent in May on the previous month.
THE number of information technology job advertisements in Western Australia fell almost 10 per cent in May on the previous month.
May figures from the Olivier Internet job index indicate that, in WA, the number of job advertisements overall was up 8.95 per cent while IT&T was down 9.2 per cent for the month of May.
Nationally, the IT&T jobs sector continued to climb in May, up 1.95 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms.
This was a further increase from April figures that showed the number of job ads grew 1.04 per cent.
Olivier Group director Robert Olivier said the IT&T job slump for WA in May should be of little concern as the IT&T job trend overall remained one of growth.
Mr Olivier said that, overall, IT&T jobs in Australia were up 88 per cent on 12 months ago. The news was also good for graduates with an increase 66.7 per cent Australia wide on IT&T jobs since May 2003.
Mr Olivier said the IT&T sector was the second best performing sector, on an annual basis, in terms of new jobs.
In May, the number of desktop support and help desk positions grew 21.62 per cent, while system administration jobs grew 20.09 per cent in May.
Software development grew 4.83 per cent while there wasa slight decline in the number of training and technical writing positions.
However, the number of jobs for multimedia Internet and graphic design declined 6.45 per cent.
The Olivier Internet Job index surveyed 120,311 Internet job ads on all major commercial Internet job sites in May and analysed them by State and industry sector.
Figures from the latest Ambit-JOBNET trend series indicate that programmers with Java, Unix or Oracle skills should have little problem finding work.
Ambit IT &T Recruitment (WA) spokesman Hayden Bell said although the demand for Java experts had declined since February 2001 (when it peaked at 15.6 per cent), demand for Java skills remained high.
“The key reason for this stems from Java continuing to be the preferred development platform because of its scalability and its ability to operate with other platforms within client and server space,” he said.
