IT job market picks up in Westchester
Workers in information technology have something to cheer about, even as the government”™s latest employment report showed a slowdown in job growth in April.
The latest Pace SkillProof IT Index Report shows that the market for IT jobs in Westchester, and Manhattan as well, is showing signs of improvement. The index uses data from SkillProof Inc., of Bridgeport, Conn., a technology firm specializing in job market research. It provides a snapshot of IT job openings at major firms.
For the first quarter, the index registered 186 in Westchester, more than 18 percent above 158 in the fourth quarter of 2011 and nearly one percent higher than 185 a year ago. In Manhattan, the index rose 7 percent from the fourth quarter and two percent from a year ago.
“It”™s a slight rebound, not as much as we saw in the previous three quarters, but a slight rebound,” said Farrokh Hormozi, an economist and chairman of the public administration department at Pace”™s Dyson College of Arts and Sciences who developed and calculates the index. “The IT market is slightly different from the general labor market. An IT professional can work part time and as a consultant. It”™s not full-time employment, not reported to the government as fully employed. But they are fully employed. That is the nature of the IT business.”
In Westchester, of the 11 categories of IT professionals tracked by the index, eight grew with two increasing by more than 90 percent, one declined and two remained flat. Demand for IT managers was up 107 percent, continuing its pattern of growth over the past four quarters. The other category with a strong showing was software engineers, systems, which rose by 87 percent, somewhat less than the 143 percent increase during the previous quarter. On the other hand, demand for software engineers, applications, was down slightly by 6 percent.
“Demand for IT managers is good,” said Hormozi, “because you need someone to manage Internet facilities. Someone to help the workforce adapt to change.” In the area of adaptation, demand for software engineers is up, he said, because “we don”™t always need a completely new program.”
Jean Hill, chief technology officer at First New York Securities, said the outlook for IT hiring in support roles should increase as the economy starts to grow. “Almost every working professional uses technology in some form to perform their duties. Accordingly, technology and good technical support are no longer luxuries but rather necessities.”
She said firms are investing in IT but in very different ways than in the past, with telecommuting and virtual offices replacing the cubicle. “Take the office parks in Westchester,” she said. “Twenty years ago it was cube heaven. Now we have collaborative workspaces, more a teamwork type of setting. You have your laptop and can sit anywhere in the building.”
This, she said, isn”™t making for fewer IT workers, but changing the nature of their work.
“What it”™s doing to hiring is allowing for centers of excellence in different regions as opposed to having one of everything in every office,” she said. And, she added, the workforce is much more tech-savvy than a decade ago. “Ten years ago the tech support person did everything. But now everyone has more experience doing things themselves, software engineers are focusing more on applications-building ”“ applications for mobile devices.”