Demand for IT workers falls in 2009

Thailand's total demand for IT-skilled human resources is expected to drop by about 3 per cent this year to about 100,000 positions, compared with 109,000 positions last year, according to the large online recruitment firm JobsDB Recruitment (Thailand).

However, two other large IT recruitment companies believe the fall in recruitment demand could be as steep as 40 per cent in some industry categories.

JobsDB Recruitment (Thailand) managing director Sathinee Mokaves said that although the economic crisis had affected demand for IT workers, it was perhaps the least-affected area when compared to overall recruitment through its online channel, www.jobsdb.co.th. The website has more than 576,000 members and about 350,000 viewers per day.

Overall recruitment has fallen by about 40 per cent, mostly in the manufacturing, marketing and financial industries. In the IT industry, IT outsourcing is the main area with a clear reduction in recruitment due to there being fewer IT projects, because end-users are delaying IT investment during the economic downturn, she said.

However, there is still demand for IT workers in some industry categories, including software designers, application specialists, system and network support specialists and specialised programmers. The 3-per-cent shrinkage has occurred in demand for general programmers, technical-support specialists and sales engineers.

"Usually, the IT departments of companies are not large-scale operations with a lot of IT resources, so we are not recognising the huge reduction in this segment. Most of them are postponing recruitment," Sathinee said.

Meanwhile, Peter Fischbach, the president of ISM Technology Recruitment, a large IT-recruitment company, said he expected IT recruitment demand to fall by about 20 per cent in Thailand this year because of economic crisis.

The main industries with reduced demand for IT resources are manufacturing, retailing and consumer-product businesses, producing a lower demand for IT workers skilled in enterprise resource planning - both SAP and Oracle, he said.

However, demand for skills in Web-based programming technologies - both .NET and Java - remain stable because many companies still need to maintain their Internet presence in order to help reduce their overall operational costs.

There is also increasing demand in special areas, including software testing and software quality assurance. Skilled workers in these areas test and assure the development of new software and applications as well as testing interoperability and integration with existing systems.

"The types of IT resources that are affected [by the slowdown] include IT managers, IT directors and programmers. Recruitment demand in these areas is expected to fall by about 50 per cent," Fischbach said.

He said that while - in a global context - the financial industry was the main business sector cutting back on IT resources, in Thailand this situation was reversed. The local financial sector had huge demand for IT resources to serve their business expansion.

"Another area of potentially increased demand for IT human resources is the telecommunications industry. If 3G or WiMAX licences go ahead, that will draw higher demand for IT human resources this year," he said.

E IT Computing Recruitment's director Edward Holland said total IT recruitment in Thailand this year would fall by about 40 per cent.

However, three main skill types remain in hot demand: Java, .NET and enterprise resource planning. People with these skills are still in demand in the midst of an overall reduction in IT recruitment. There is also high demand for workers skilled in quality testing, software testing and quality assurance, although this is something of a niche industry.

Holland said the main industries with high demand for IT human resources this year were banking, telecommunication, offshore software development and electronic commerce businesses.