Public sector IT job market grinding to a halt

The number of people placed in new jobs by recruitment consultancies continued to increase in August, but growth slowed further from March’s peak, recording the slowest increase in permanent appointments since October 2009.

 

“Whereas demand for staff is growing in the private sector, many public sector organisations have started redundancy programmes and if they are still recruiting they are doing so at a reduced pace,” warned Bernard Brown, partner and head of business services at KPMG. 

 

“In the months ahead we will see a substantial reduction in public sector headcount as the cuts begin to bite,” he added.

 

The data comes from the latest report on job trends in all sectors including ICT from KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), which says it represents the entire recruitment industry.

 

"IT employment prospects are certainly better than they were a year ago and we've seen something of a permanent jobs-led recovery," noted Dave Pye, director of the REC's technical sector. "But growth is slowing now."

 

The group also points to official (ONS) figures that in parallel support its findings - public sector employment in education and public administration saw decreases in some regions, while the NHS, the largest public sector employer of them all, accounting for 27% of all jobs in the sector, did see some growth in the first quarter.

 

The report does show a shortage of permanent .Net developers and a shortage of contract CAD operators over the year and says permanent and contract business analysts and general IT staff were also in short supply.