The technology Sector

IDC, the international consultancy firm specialised in global marketing strategies has brought us what it believes will be the newest trends to shape the technology sector. One of the most relevant aspects is the increase in global spending on IT which is set to increase by 5%. Furthermore, it forecasts an increase in spending by companies of 25% in the cloud and 30% in Big Data technology.

Considering these figures in global growth, we must wonder about the current situation of the labour market in this sector: Is it also a growing market? What types of positions are in the biggest demand? How has this sector been affected by the structural crisis affecting our markets?

As we mentioned in the article: “How the crisis is affecting the Headhunting sector”, the technology sector’s labour market is one of the least affected due to certain inherent characteristics.

One of these is that the current day technology sector offers services that have mainly been developed in the last 2-3 years (Virtualization & Cloud Computing, etc.) and as a result the number of specialised professionals with experience is rather low. The simple fact that the human capital with these skill sets is scarce and this means that the unemployment rate in this industry is lower than in other sectors. These positions demand a higher level of specialisation, and when the position demands greater specialisation there is naturally less unemployment.

This summer, several companies in the technology sector announced staffing cuts, which were directly related to the drop in investments in new projects. This may seem contradictory, as although there is significant growth in this sector and the new services, the current economic situation prevents investments in IT from moving in tandem with these emerging new technologies.

Moreover, this sector is extremely dynamic and ever changing. New services are regularly/frequently created and those already in existence are renewed or replaced so the demand for specialists in these new services and technology is on the increase. It is important to mention that when new services are created others then become obsolete and therefore industry professionals are forced to continuously recycle their training and expertise.

Taking all this into account, whether you are thinking about joining this sector or you are already working in it, any investment in training in the technology domain is a safe bet.

The profiles in the greatest demand in this market are those in technical positions that also require customer management skills. Very often the technical profiles lack experience in commercial positions making the search for these types of profiles more complicated.

Currently, it is important to continue investing in training and updating existing skills in order to brave this economic and employment situation with the maximum number of resources possible both in terms of competences and skills.