IT Workers Finished The Year (Mostly) UpbeatIT Workers Finished The Year (Mostly) Upbeat

In 2004, IT professionals were optimistic, but jumpy.

Job confidence among IT pros last year was second-highest among four other sectors, according to surveys conducted for Hudson, a division of Hudson Highland Group, a staffing and executive-search firm. However, that optimism changed the most throughout the year of the four industries surveyed monthly by Hudson.

The IT sector was "cautiously optimistic, but somewhat volatile," says Kevin Knaul, VP for Hudson Global Resources' IT & Telecommunications practice group. Knaul contends a range of factors contributed to tech workers' anxiousness, from the presidential race and the candidates' differing views on offshoring and outsourcing to unpredictability in the economy and the stock market to the merger battle between Oracle and PeopleSoft. Since January 2004, Hudson has conducted monthly phone interviews with about 9,000 workers in a number of industries, including about 350 IT workers. Compared with a base score of 100, employment-confidence ratings among IT workers rolled up and down through the year, from a low of 101.2 in May, to a high of 120.8 in October. The December figure of 116.3 was higher than the national score that includes all sectors, which rated confidence at only 103.6, the lowest overall score of the year.

Sarbanes-Oxley had accounting and finance pros feeling good, the most confident and stable sector surveyed by Hudson through the year. Sarbanes-Oxley--"the accounting and finance industry's Y2K," says Knaul--also lifted the IT sector since compliance required accounting, finance, and IT, Knaul says.

Knaul predicts that corporate spending on IT, including IT labor, will increase in 2005, and he expects the increase in hiring will most likely involve contingent or contract workers who are assigned to help implement new projects. Besides projects related to Sarbanes-Oxley and other compliance demands, "hot-button" projects in 2005 will center around security-related work. "The people coming up with these new viruses are getting better," he says, "and so there's a need for security expertise to protect against that."