Economic heat dries up IT salaries
Layoffs arent the only things IT professionals need to contend with these days. After soaring for several years, the growth rate for IT professionals salaries has moderated, according to a salary survey from Matrix Resources Inc., an IT staffing provider based in Atlanta.
Salary increases for IT professionals during the last quarter averaged 0.85 percent for all positions in Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix and Research Triangle Park, N.C., a rate slightly less than the 1 percent increase for the first quarter.
Across all four cities, quality assurance managers, telecom managers and quality assurance analysts saw the highest pay increases during the last quarter.
IT pros are prone to say sayonara
A lower salary growth could be the reason that more than half of IT professionals are leaving their employers relatively quickly. The IT Market Compensation Study from People3, a subsidiary of Gartner Inc. in Bridgewater, N.J., shows that the average tenure for an IT professional is less than three years.
Luckily for IT hiring managers, the use of new technologies offering learning and training initiatives and providing a challenging technical environment ranked higher than competitive, market-based salaries as effective retention practices.
That training could come in handy: The study shows that the workload of IT departments is expected to increase 50 percent by 2005.