IT job market in North Carolina bottoms out in May, report says

Job seekers in the information technology sector have more reasons for optimism as summer nears. The number of vacancies is up, albeit slightly.

Driven by a 17.6 percent jump in the triangle and a 40 percent spike in the Charlotte area, IT job openings increased by 110 in May to 1,250, according to the latest it jobs report from and the

“The IT job market in North Carolina has bottomed out and continued to expand in May,” SkillProof, a nation-wide IT talent placement firm, and NCTA said.

Although North Carolina has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates at above 11 percent, its improvement in IT opportunities contrasted strongly with a 4.8 percent decline across the U.S.

Still, SkillProof reported that the worst may be over in the IT sector.

“Even though the national IT job market continued to shrink in May, we expect that the bottom has been reached since more and more states show flat or growing job markets,” the report’s authors said.

In two specific skills areas, demand in May actually was stronger than one year ago.

System management server openings increased to 80 from 10.

Meanwhile, Windows NT/2000/2003 server jobs grew to 120, up from 110 a year ago.

Demand for software developers was up 25.3 percent in May. IT manager demand increased 21.3 percent, and openings for IT architects and consultants grew 12.5 percent.

Systems administration openings hit 150, the same as one year ago.

Business and process design vacancies were calculated at 60, the same as a year ago.

May’s total openings, however, is well under the 3,360 available a year ago and far shy of the 6,850 openings reported in May 2007.

SkillProof and NCTA also reported that trends indicate the job market may not improve much in the short term.

“While the stock market is gaining some momentum, jobs are still hard to come by,” the report said.

“Since stocks tend to recover first before demand for labor picks up after a recession the current development in the stock market is generating some optimism that jobs may begin to return later this year. Nevertheless, we don’t expect increased demand during the summer, due to the season.”

Overall job openings by category with 2008 demand in parenthesis:

• Systems engineering/support 520 (890)

• Software development 210 (630)

• Systems administration 150 (150)

• IT management 100 (410)

• IT architects/consultants 90 (620)

• IT sales and marketing 60 (220)

• Business/process design 60 (60)

• Hardware engineering 10 (170)

• Training/technical writing 10 (140)

• Misc. IT job categories 40 (90)

Top 15 needed skills: