September 3, 2008

By Mass High Tech Staff

Information technology professionals seeking jobs may get a break in the Boston area later this year, according to a new survey.

The Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report found that 13 percent of chief information officers in the area plan to hire more staff in the fourth quarter, while five percent plan to reduce staff. The resulting net eight percent staff increase, one point higher than forecasts for the third quarter, is reflective of the survey conducted in companies with more than 100 employees.

Results of the survey stem from queries of 1,400 CIOs nationally and interviews with 200 CIOs in the Boston area.

The majority of CIOs to be hired would perform help desk, networking and Web 2.0-based functions, said Katherine Spencer Lee, Robert Half Technology executive director.

The hiring news follows on the heals of Robert Half Technology’s earlier announcement in June that a net of seven percent of Boston-area chief information officers expect to hire information technology professionals for new positions during the third quarter.

In May, Mass High Tech’s quarterly survey of technology executives’ sector growth confidence showed a sharp drop in the first quarter of 2008 when compared with the prior three months and with the same quarter last year.

While more than 60 percent of respondents had voiced confidence in the previous periods, only 53.3 percent of the 830 participants in the first-quarter 2008 survey expressed moderate or higher confidence.

Confidence levels were down throughout the Internet, telecom, bio/medtech and software sectors. The only exceptions came in comparisons with first-quarter 2007 confidence levels in bio/medtech, where nearly 37 percent of respondents said they were “very confident,” up dramatically from both previous surveys.

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