Good News Techies: Hiring for IT Jobs Rising

If you know tech, you’re looking good to employers. Analysts predict that IT hiring will continue to rise in 2012 – for the third straight year. And with a humming technology side of business, logic and hope both say that’s gotta make things run faster, smoother, better for all sectors.

The numbers showing happy days are in Computerworld‘s annual Forecast survey.
• 29% of the IT executives plan to increase IT staffing in the first half of ’12. That’s the highest level of hiring confidence in the last three years (23% were hiring in 2010 survey, and 20% in 2009).
(Source: Computerworld‘s exclusive Forecast 2012 survey, June 2011. Base: 353 IT executives.)

What they’re looking for and how it matters to the rest of us:
They’re thinking about innovation, the survey indicates, not just treading water.

They’ll be hiring in these sectors:
1. Programming and Application Development
• 61% plan to hire here, up from 44% in 2010 survey.
Employers want website development, upgrading internal systems. gearing up for mobile computers – smartphones and tablets rule not just in personal life but in business, especially health care and transportation.

2. Project Management
• 44% plan to hire, up from 43% in 2010 survey.
In recognition that everyone needs a strong director, managing editor, head chef – pick your metaphor for the master jugglers that are project managers. Smart business leaders are finally recognizing that specialists are great at their specialties but business runs best when there’s someone corralling all the specialists together to keep the project on track and into the station on time.

3. Help Desk/Technical Support
• 35% plan to hire, down from 43% in 2010 survey.
Technology is moving so fast the average worker struggles to keep up and focused on his/her core job at the same time. Thank heavens for Help Desks everywhere.

4. Networking
• 35% plan to hire, down from 38% in 2010 survey.
Cloud computing has been a game changer here.

5. Business Intelligence
• 23% plan to hire, up from 13% in 2010 survey.
Shifting concentration from cost savings to investing in technology may be what’s driving this increase, especially tech that provides access to real-time data, helping execs make smarterr business decisions.

6. Data Center
• 18% plan to hire, down from 21% in 2010 survey.
Virtualization and cloud strategies are changing data centers as they are networking sectors. Systems integration and data center operations are key in today’s market.

7. Web 2.0
• 18% plan to hire, up from 17% in 2010 survey.

Social media tech skills remain hot, as industry embraces web 2.0 technologies into their infrastructure: especially .Net, AJAX and PHP in the back end, and in the front end HTML, XML, CSS, Flash and Javascript,.

8. Security
• 17% plan to hire, down from 32% in 2010 survey.
Despite the drop in expected hiring in this sector, security remains important especially with cloud computing opening up new vulnerabilities in systems.

9. Telecommunications
• 9% plan to hire, down from 17% in 2010 survey.
What’s hot: voice-over-IP, IP telephony skills, Cisco IPCC call center systems.