Slower hiring? Not so fast

There's been a lot of speculation about how a U.S. recession may impact the IT jobs market. One thing is certain: demand for IT professionals remains strong across nearly all sectors of the U.S. economy, according to CIOs, analysts and headhunters.

Some sectors, such as construction and investment banks that have been exposed to the subprime mortgage mess, have already made adjustments to their 2008 IT spending plans. Some organizations continue to fine-tune those plans on a weekly or monthly basis. And although analysts believe that if the U.S. plunges into a prolonged recession that the current demand for IT professionals will soften, the overall demand for people with sought-after skills such as J2ee development and industry-specific SAP skills should remain fairly resilient.

Case in point: The CIO for a Southeast credit services company that's been slammed by the current credit crunch recently told me that while his company's 2008 IT budget has taken a 20% nosedive compared to last year, he continues to hire people with virtualization and systems integration skills to help support ongoing work being done in those areas.

Even big investment banks that have been burned by their exposure to investments in subprime mortgage vehicles are continuing to invest heavily in strategic IT/business projects, according to analysts. Here's part of the rationale: if Bank A decided to postpone a strategic initiative while its competitors continue to invest in the same areas, it might cost Bank A 2X or more if it tries to play catch-up a year from now, explains Hunter College professor Howard Rubin. IT is such a critical component for companies to achieve strategic differentiation or remain competitive that few companies are willing to abandon their top-tier projects.

Even if consumer spending should tank, retailers will continue to invest in IT/business projects that are aimed at optimizing operations, says Greg Buzek, founder and president of IHL Consulting Group, a Franklin, TN-based retail and technology research firm. Buzek says many so-called 'Big Box' retailers continue to invest heavily in projects aimed at improving inventory visibility across their stores, as well as CRM and customer loyalty-related initiatives.

For these and other reasons, demand for retail-industry IT pros with .Net, Java and Ruby on Rails experience remains red-hot, says Buzek.

Here's another piece to the IT labor puzzle: Even for large companies whose U.S. revenues have ebbed, international growth in places like China and Singapore are driving IT infrastructure investment projects overseas, says David Foote, chief research officer at Foote Partners LLC in Vero Beach, FL. Those investments will continue to drive demand for global sourcing as well as the need for domestic liaisons to manage these outsourcing relationships.