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O.C. IT hiring shows hint of stabilizing

July 7th, 2009, 3:00 am · 10 Comments · posted by Mary Ann Milbourn

IT layoffs by Orange County employers appear to be stabilizing and a few more companies indicate they will be hiring over the next six months, according to a new survey.

ConsultNet, a technology and engineering staffing company with offices in Irvine, surveyed 482 companies in Orange County in May about their IT operations.

Nine percent said they would be hiring in the next six months, up from 8% in the first six months. About 53% will cut staff over the last half of the year versus 52% in the first six months.

The companies also plan to spend a little more money on IT. (Click on chart below to enlarge.)

it-forecast

Joe Miller, director of ConsultNet's California business operations, says that while employers aren't talking about doing a lot of hiring over the next six months, at least the layoffs and budget cuts are easing.

"We've seen an improvement — at least in the outlook — for Q3 and Q4," Miller said.

He said he's seeing particular strength at Orange County medical device and biotech companies, which are adding staff.

"They seem to have moved along pretty nicely and are not as impacted as say the financial industry," Miller said.

Orange County's computer gaming companies are also doing well, especially the smaller start-ups, he said.

"We've seen all the entrepreneurs who have come out of places like Blizzard start their own businesses," said Miller.

He said more companies are turning to temporary workers to fill out their staffs in the short term until they can see more clearly what's in store for the economy and their businesses. ConsultNet's typical assignment is for six months.

See the full ConsultNet 2009 Technology Staffing Outlook HERE (It's free but registration is required).

Did you miss these recent jobs stories ...

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 10 Comments

  • Josh says:
    July 7, 2009 at 8:35 am

    8% of companies plan to hire while 53% plan to lay off, and that is considered "stabilizing"?

    And, if this survey was of 482 companies in OC, many of those are obviously very small companies. How many of the 8% will be doubling their IT staffs to 2 people, I wonder? How many of the 53% will be laying off 10, 20, 50+ IT staff?

  • fher says:
    July 7, 2009 at 10:11 am

    josh what do you expect they have to prop up the annointed one nobama. all these state run media will not report the truth only what nobama look good. looney toon biden even said it himself they misread the economy. oh wait its just another blunder by this idiot. and these morons say the economy is stabalizing. yeah and im going to be the next president also.

  • John Nowachek says:
    July 7, 2009 at 11:18 am

    IT jobs in Orange County will continue to move to India for most large Orange County Corporations for the rest of 2009 and 2010. As for smaller businesses, outsourcing IT jobs is not a feasable business model. As for the media, 1% is true and 99% is meant to mislead the readers. President Obama is the only President in U.S. history to ever harass people who criticize his ignorant economic plans. America will never be the same as it was 20 years ago. You are going to see the homeless population grow each year as the baby boomers are kicked out into the streets because they cannot afford the rents. No savings or sound investments for retirement means you will eventually become homeless.

  • hbrider says:
    July 7, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    I work in the IT field and deal with hundreds of companies in not just OC but across the U.S. and I am telling you that this article is bogus! I deal with IT managers daily and I get the real information from them about the budgets being frozen and nothing even being planned for the rest of the year and on into the next. I have had at least 45 companies in the last year alone fire their in-house IT guy or people and hire a consultant to come in only when they are needed. Yes, the business economy is trashed and so is the IT field. There is no sign of it being stable at all. Just another space filling, fluff writing article from OCR.

  • Ed says:
    July 7, 2009 at 2:12 pm

    Layoffs are stabilizing because they are running out of people to fire! LOL ;-) As for Obama hater fher, if you are going to throw sticks, don't forget to throw some to Bush and his friends who for years spoon fed the public and the world about how "the economy is strong!", or the ever famous "the crisis has been contained". Yeah Obama's choices suck, but stop being short sighted and point the finger at the proper culprits. Obama has been in office for 7 months. Bush and friends and even Clinton to a point, had over a decade to run this country into the ground, expecting "change" in less than a year is pure fantasy.

  • fher says:
    July 7, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    ed do your homework you idiot when bush was in office stock market was at 14,000 and all the media did was oh the start of a recesion. yeah he spent millions on the war but kept your a$$ safe from terrorist and what has your presidente chavez i mean obama done. spend trillions on his union buddies. oh wait they are shovel ready jobs. yeah seven months all right enough to take this country down the toilet. and now he says that the door is open for another stimulus f!@#$ wake up and get your head out of your a$$

    • TheAllKnowing says:
      July 7, 2009 at 5:32 pm

      Pass the dutchie on the left hand side, Bro. I want to have what you're smoking.

  • jeff says:
    July 8, 2009 at 7:15 am

    This is BS also. I am an IT consultant and my work is growing because small company, and medium size ones, are still laying off people. Two years ago, I barely got by with little work averaging 30 hours a week.. Profit just under $70,000.

    So far this year, I have profit over $110,000 averaging over 55 hours a week. I may have to hire help!

    The reason for my growth, cutting in house IT staff. In the long run, it will kill the small company.

  • Lawrence Fine says:
    July 11, 2009 at 11:31 am

    Obama's action so far concern employment was to appoint GOP Sen. Judd Gregg for Commerce Secretary (i.e. more outsourcing and H1Bs). And Obama stated that "someone in the world will always work for less than US citizens", not very encouraging so far.