The first quarter of 2008 was a pretty gloomy time, with much discussion of cuts in IT budgets and their potential impact on the data center sector. In that environment, you'd think IT hiring would be flat or even slightly lower as companies freeze hiring.
Instead, U.S. IT employment jumped more than 12 percent compared with a year ago, with companies adding about 376,000 IT jobs to hit 3.8 million employed. Some additional detail from InformationWeek:
Where's the U.S. IT job growth coming from? By far the largest growth category has been computer support specialists, which leaped 41% the past year, adding 127,000 jobs. Next is network and data communication analysts (68,000 new jobs, 19% growth), computer scientists and system analysts (65,000 new jobs, 8% growth), and network/system administrators (51,000 new jobs, 31% growth). The economy also added 51,000 IT management jobs, growing 11%.
Were HR departments getting new workers in the door before the order for the hiring freeze comes down from on high? Or is the IT sector continuing to hire despite the current economic challenges?
