Hidden in a deep pile of discouraging IT employment statistics from research firm The Hackett Group was a small glimmer of hope about the healthcare and green IT fields, which most analysts expect to thrive in upcoming years.
First, the bad news from the report, as outlined by InformationWeek:
- In 2009, about 630,000 back-office jobs - including about 300,000 IT jobs - were eliminated from the payrolls of 4,000 global, publicly traded companies with more than $1 billion revenue.
- Of those jobs, about half - including 150,000 of the IT positions - were U.S.-based.
- In the bigger scope, from 2000 to 2007, these corporation eliminated about 1.4 million back-office jobs, including approximately 900,000 IT jobs, about half which were in the U.S.
The better news:
There is still "high demand" by companies to fill IT positions, including business analyst, technology architect, program managers and SAP configuration specialists.That includes the thousands of new IT jobs predicted to be created in sectors such as healthcare and green energy over the next few years.
Of course, more efficient IT leads to job losses for clerical workers, but as the report notes, that's a story as old as bank tellers and ATMs. It's the same lesson taught one more time: Gravitate toward the trends even if means moving out of your comfort zone and getting more education or certifications.
-- Don Willmott