Report predicts job safety for IT staff at SMEs

 

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By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 21 Aug 2009 at 16:05

IT staff at SMEs are well positioned to keep their jobs despite the economic downturn, according to a report from research company Forrester.

The company’s The State Of SMB IT Budgets: 2009 survey finds that 57% of 1,258 companies questioned across Europe and the United States expect IT staffing levels to remain largely the same.

Only 13% of companies in the report say they are going to reduce staff significantly, while 16% say they are going to shave staff number by less than one employee in 20.

"In the UK and US, people try to keep hold of core IT staff and they do this by using contractors for variable cost projects," says Forrester vice president Andrew Bartels, who wrote the report. "That way, when times are hard they might cut back on contractors, but keep staff.

"If they have staff that already know the company, its systems and the way the business runs, they don’t want to lay them off and then have to spend money rehiring them."

Although nearly one in ten companies expect to hire more staff this year, the potential for pay increases looks bleak. Half of all companies surveyed predict a wage freeze, while nearly a third of the organisations surveyed said salaries would go down.