There's more misery ahead for ICT executives, with the weakening job market for the technology high flyers at the end of last year carrying over into this year. The extent of the crisis is evident with the latest report on executive demand for January plummeting 28% since December.
According to the employment Index from E.L. Consult the fall in demand in January in the ICT sector was the largest of all market sectors surveyed.
And losses in ICT were significant across most large states, with a gain in Western Australian the only bright spot. South Australia also gained.
EL Consult managing director Grant Montgomery says the January loss in the technology sector comes in an environment where the ICT index gained only 7% over 2016 – the smallest gain out of all the sectors.
{loadposition peter}Across the board in all sectors nationally the EL Consult index revealed demand for executive jobs dropped by 17%, with the number of vacancies in the executive ranks falling 17% over December numbers and were well down on the same month in 2016.
All five sectors - finance, engineering, general management, ICT and marketing - lost ground in January and, while ICT was the biggest fall, Montgomery says this could be down to the fact that employment in the sector is heavily weighted to contract work “which is highly affected by holiday seasons”.
Montgomery says the overall drop in demand for executives across all sectors is not a good start to 2017 and contrasts to most of 2016, when a growth trend developed through month on month rises – and doesn’t reflect well on the future for general employment either, as studies have shown that executive employment movements lead, by about 3 months, general employment.
“In an environment where many decision makers are jumping at shadows it is not surprising that employers, particularly those employing the more highly paid white collar employee are sitting on their hands,” Montgomery says.
“There is no question that 2016 was an eventful year internationally and a lot of those events have untested economic implications for Australian businesses.
“While the Trump election can easily be overworked as good or bad no one can claim to know just what effect his policies will have on Australian’s trade position be it in relation to trade agreements or even the Chinese economy, our largest trading partner.
“Despite a queue of interest rate deductions recently we still have some of the highest interest rates amongst the advanced economies in the world and this is particularly so when comes to small business lending. Our biggest and most vulnerable employer group.
“Every time the US Federal Reserve whispers about the possibility of US interest rate the impact on the Australian dollar is immediate and lasting and our capital trade balances suffer.
“Sure Januarys with the large number of public holidays and the annual holiday closure of many businesses are generally not good measures for employment data and the annual holiday closure of many businesses are generally not good measures for employment data but the fact is that this January was even lower than January 2016 and if it is the beginning of trend then 2017 is not looking great.”
Montgomery says the fact is that this January was even lower than January 2016 - and if it is the “beginning of trend” - then 2017 is “not looking great”.
“In January all states and territories except for Tasmania fell. While Victoria largely held its ground, surprisingly it was the relatively strong regions Queensland and New South Wales which made the most negative impact on the overall index.
“It should be recalled, however, that New South Wales’s demand rose strongly during 2016,” Montgomery concludes.