By Joey Gardiner, 28 May 2002 14:15
NEWS A leading UK recruitment firm has said the IT jobs market is showing no signs of recovery. William Grubbs, COO of Spring, told silicon.com: "I don't see any sign of an upturn right now." However, some may take consolation from the fact he predicts it will at least get no worse. "We've seen a levelling off in the last few months - we think it's probably at its worst at the moment," he said. Grubbs said predicting an upturn is very difficult because of the relative youth of the IT staffing industry. "The boom time was such a distortion it is difficult to know what the continued upward trend of the market is, as you would in a more mature market," he said. This follows on from news last week that both contractor and permanent wages have fallen by over 15 per cent since the start of the year. In addition it was discovered Barclays Bank is cutting the wages of its contract staff by 20 per cent. Grubbs urged IT professionals to take a flexible attitude to their career path - as well as their salary - in order to beat the downturn: "If you can be flexible, there are still shortages and demand in certain areas." Spring's IT recruitment business turns over more than £250m per year, mostly in the placement of temporary contract staff. Along with the rest of the industry it has faced flat rate cuts from large employers as well as the erosion of margins over the past year.
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