Expect More IT Hiring than Firing in Q1 2013

There is more IT hiring than cutbacks expected for the first quarter of 2013, though some of those in-demand positions are getting harder to fill, according to a new CIO survey.

Staffing advisory Robert Half Technology’s “IT Hiring Index and Skills Report” pooled answers from more than 1,400 CIOs at U.S. businesses with 100 or more employees for its outlook of the first three months of the new year. Seventeen percent of CIOs stated they plan to add to their IT department staffing in the beginning of 2013, countered with 8 percent who plan to make cuts. The 9 percent net difference between growth and cutbacks is 6 percent more than the projections of IT hiring by CIOs during the final quarter of 2012, according to the survey. The remaining 75 percent of CIOs reported no discernible difference anticipated for their IT staffs in the year ahead.

Hiring increases at the start of the new year are typical as many new enterprise budgets kick in, though it is becoming difficult for enterprises to nail down talent for certain “hot” careers, said John Reed, senior executive director at Robert Half Technology in a release accompanying the report. Jobs that CIOs reported as “challenging” to fill include IT security (14 percent), application developer (12 percent) and data/database manager (12 percent), the advisory reported. Robert Half Technology found that 63 percent of enterprises ranked the search for expertise somewhat or very challenging, a 9 percent jump from answers to that same question in the third quarter of 2012.

In terms of the level of desirability, database management ranks at the top among CIOs (48 percent)—a position Robert Half Technology expects to increase in employment by 31 percent by 2020—followed by network administrator (47 percent) and Web developer/website designer (33 percent).

When asked if their enterprises will invest in IT projects in the first quarter of 2013, respondents were split nearly evenly between positive and negative. Areas of hiring strength include the manufacturing, business services and finance, and, regionally, 18 percent of CIOs are expected to add to IT departments at enterprises in the Mountain states—Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

This story originally appeared at Information Management.