The seasonally adjusted Olivier Job Index shows that IT job ads rose 0.46 per cent in December, month-on-month, closely tracking the market average of an overall rise of about 0.49 per cent.

IT job vacancies for December were 31 per cent lower than a year ago, but Olivier Group director Robert Olivier said that was still up 12 per cent from June, when pessimism over the GFC was at its peak. "My reading is that the last month's unemployment figure surprised many but, given the way that ads have been performing in the last six months, we feel that there's a positive employment trend," Mr Olivier said.

December's small rise in IT vacancies was attributable to a sharp drop in ads for desktop support roles (10.5 per cent) and technical writers (4.8 per cent) being offset by leaps in roles for sales and marketing professionals (8.6 per cent) and software developers.

Mr Olivier said the shift in the mix of vacancy types might indicate the mood in the IT sector was turning more optimistic.

"Management sales roles tend to be higher-paid roles so it may be that people have seen the confidence return," he said.

While jobs in other sectors were more vulnerable to short-term market activity such as interest rates, IT vacancies tended to be linked to long-term economic radars due to the sector's strategic nature. "IT projects have generally been kept on the backburner by organisations so it could be that as those constraints tend to ease up a bit . . . that people are getting more optimistic. The IT market has been slow to respond, compared to many other sectors, in the last six months."

NSW and Victoria held the worst prospects for IT jobseekers during the month, with respective overall declines in vacancies of 0.86 per cent and 1.17 per cent, seasonally adjusted.

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Source: The Australian January 19, 2010