Skilled IT staff fell out of the top 10 “hot jobs” in Manpower’s annual Talent Shortage survey, released March 29, due to workforce optimization.
The survey also revealed that employer requirements for IT staff and administrative assistants/personal assistants in 2006 have been surpassed by other in-demand positions such as accounting and finance staff and laborers, which refers to non-skilled manual labor positions.
Ranked No. 6 out of the top 10 hot jobs in 2006 but absent from the top 10 in 2007, the survey reveals that employers’ needs for IT staff were surpassed by other positions. Outsourcing, however, not a lack of demand for technology professionals, was implicated in its absence.
“The absence of skilled IT staff from our Top 10 list by no means indicates that these positions are no longer in demand. Rather, companies are getting more sophisticated about work force optimization strategies and how they use a combination of outsourcing, in-sourcing, on- and offshoring and automated technologies, which can help them better manage their talent requirements,” said Jeffrey A. Joerres, Chairman & CEO of Manpower.
Engineers also slipped down the hot jobs list in 2007, down to fourth place from second in 2006. Technicians remained in stable demand, in the third position both years.
However, it was skills trades people who topped the globally most-wanted list this year, with 41 percent of responding employers expressing that they were finding it more difficult to fill these types of open jobs, especially in the areas of production and operations, engineering and maintenance.