While the Adelaide IT job market was tight in 2009 with permanent slow and contracting steady, we are forecasting month on month improvements in hiring confidence through 2010.  The improvement will be driven primarily by increased expenditure in project work that has been put on hold due to the GFC in addition to growing candidate confidence as they start to look for new career opportunities.

Although the Brisbane market continues to be challenging, optimism is growing across most sectors that 2010 will see improvement over 2009. During January demand grew and this initial growth has been sustained through the first half of February.

The first half of 2010 is expected to see the challenging conditions of 2009 continue in the ACT market. We are however expecting some pick-up in the second half of the year as new projects come on line and Finance starts to release some of the investment funds which have been acquired as a result of Gershon savings.

While there has been some strong hiring activity in the past quarter, we are seeing this drop off substantially.

We believe that the full impact of the Gershon Review will be felt this year as Agencies attempt to achieve the desired levels of compliance with regard to ICT savings in BAU and contractor reductions.

2010 has begun with a bang in Melbourne with strong hiring activity and intentions. Roles in the contract sector have risen by 218 percent over the previous year, while permanent hiring has increased by 27 percent on January 2009 figures.

With such a strong and confident start to the year we believe that demand will continue to increase and competition for good candidates will move back to pre GFC levels.

Demand has surged in the WA market by around 40 to 60 percent (on 2008 figures) for key skills in the IT sector.

While salary and contract rates remain unchanged from late 2009, the upward pressure is already evident as employers and employees pay close attention to their payscale competitiveness.