Healthcare IT Job Outlook Perks UpHealthcare IT Job Outlook Perks Up

A new IT jobs report points to shifting employment prospects. While demand for business analysts, technology architects, and SAP configuration specialists lis looking up -- especially in the healthcare and green energy sectors -- lower level "commodity" IT jobs will continue to be eliminated or outsourced.

In 2009, about 630,000 back-office jobs -- including about 300,000 IT jobs -- were eliminated from the payrolls of 4,000 global, publicly traded companies with more than $1 billion revenue, according to a new report from research firm Hackett Group.

Of those jobs, about half -- including 150,000 of the IT positions -- were U.S.-based, says Michael Janssen, Hackett Group chief research officer and co-author of the report.

In the bigger scope, from 2000 to 2007, these corporation eliminated about 1.4 million back-office jobs, including approximately 900,000 IT jobs, about half which were in the U.S., said Erik Dorr, Hackett Group senior business advisor and co-author of the report.

"Some of these jobs were outsourced, and so some of these people are on the payrolls of other companies," including U.S. based technology services firms like IBM and others, said Dorr. However, in many cases, those positions were replaced with people offshore.

"If you're in India, that's good. If you're in the U.S., it's not," said Janssen.

But not all news is bad, Janssen said. "A small percentage" of these jobs could return to the U.S. as some companies that offshored IT functions bring some of the work back to domestic outsourcing firms, said Janssen. Still, "many of these jobs are gone for good," said Janssen.

Among those lost IT jobs are "lower end" and "commodity" type work such as developers, help desk and administration jobs, said Dorr.

However, while many of these jobs are gone, there is still "high demand" by companies to fill IT positions, including business analyst, technology architect, program managers and SAP configuration specialists, said Dorr.

Yet, while "companies struggle to fill these jobs, they make up only a small percentage of the overall jobs lost" he said.

The economy, offshoring, and improved productivity from IT itself are the main drivers in companies eliminating the "general and administrative" or "G&A" positions, said Janssen.

Aside from the IT jobs lost, other "back office" positions eliminated came from the ranks of corporate human resources, financial and procurement departments, said Janssen.

While the overall news isn't exactly rosy, there are other "threads of optimism" for IT people, said Janssen.

That includes the thousands of new IT jobs predicted to be created in sectors such as healthcare and green energy over the next few years.

Still, as healthcare demands IT expertise to become more digitized, other healthcare back-office jobs, will fall to the wayside, said Dorr.

"If you create 50,000 new IT jobs to help healthcare become more efficient, you'll take out many more than 50,000 clerical and other jobs," he said.

"That's not something people like to talk about." However, that was the similar fate of workers in industries like banking, which replaced tens of thousands of tellers with ATM over the years, he said.

Also, as more third-world nations "shoot up to become first-world nations," global companies will have a demand for new IT and other positions that require "business context," said Janssen. Many of those positions will likely be filled with experienced people from the U.S and Europe, he said.

For instance, while a weak economy might not trigger lots of spending on expensive ERP overhauls, it is spotlighting the need for more targeted IT deployments, such as key software modules to help navigate the global "cash crisis," said Janssen.

"Many companies realized that don't have systems for forecasting cash flow," said Janssen. For instance, of 100 global companies studied by Hackett in another recent report, nearly 75% said they relied on spreadsheets for forecasting cash flow. Only about a quarter used EPR modules or extensions to assist cash flow projections.

"That's another area that will drive IT forward," he said.

Blue Cross of Northeast Pennsylvania, the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and a range of large and small healthcare providers are using mobile apps to improve care and help patients manage their health. Find out how. Download the report here (registration required).