Contradictory news on job opportunities for top notch IT contractors

There seems to be some contradictory news about contractual opportunities for high flying IT contractors with some job agencies reporting higher numbers of contracts while others suggest a down turn.

According to one agency that deals exclusively with IT contractors, the number of opportunities so far has definitely showed a slow down although it was too early to tell whether this was a long term trend or simply a seasonal blip. The associate director at Hudson Recruitment, which specialises in finding jobs for contractors, said that companies were showing increasing reluctance to take on IT contractors except in particular niche areas.

Stuart Rogers said that it appeared that companies were becoming increasingly reluctant to spend money on hiring IT contractors rather than taking on permanent staff. IT recruitment firm ReThink Recruitment indicated a similar story with many of their clients requesting them to search for permanent staff to replace their contractor headcount. The trend appears to be based on cost cutting with companies as saying that it was cheaper to employ permanent staff than contractors. ReThink’s spokesperson said that the latest developments seemed to focus on company needs rather than IT contractor opportunities with IT contractors opting to work longer hours, extend their present assignments rather than look for new ones and accept a lower pay rate.

The contrary news is that the need for contractors is likely to rise again later this year as it becomes more difficult to find permanent staff for particular projects. Both Hudson and ReThink spokespersons agreed that the pendulum is likely to tip towards contractors again in the near future, particularly when companies found it hard to find the sort of skilled personnel on a permanent basis. In contrast to these two recruiters, another IT contractor specialist, SQ Computer Personnel reported that they had found that the number of new openings for IT contractors was significantly greater in March this year than at any time within the previous two years. SQ’s founder, Bernie Potts said hat despite the March figures it was difficult to tell if the overall trend was upwards as he thought that the jobs market for IT contractors was actually quite competitive.