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IT salaries unaffected by recession fear

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By BOB WEINSTEIN, Special Sections correspondent

Published: February 10, 2008

If the analysts and IT forecasting firms are right and we're heading for a recession, salaries aren't reflecting a down economy ahead. In fact, they've never been better, according to Victor Janulaitis, CEO of IT consulting firm Janco & Associates.

Here are some of the findings of his firm's January 2008 IT Salary Survey:

The mean compensation (which includes bonuses) for chief information officers in large companies is $181,240, and it's $171,200 for CIOs in midsize ones.

The mean compensation for all executive IT positions surveyed is $143,847 in large companies and $128,730 in midsize ones.

Hiring demand has increased for most IT executives.

Chief security officers particularly are in high demand. Working knowledge of mandated security requirements, particularly Sarbanes-Oxley and those related to the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act and the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council puts you ahead of the pack.

Yet in a recent CareerBuilder.com survey only 32 percent of employers polled plan to increase full-time hiring this year, down from 40 percent last year. Thirteen percent were unsure. A forecast by staffing firm Manpower pretty much agreed with CareerBuilder's numbers. Manpower sees "slow-but-steady job growth and continued recruiting challenges in 2008."

The big question: Are salaries an accurate predictor of the state of the economy? You'd be making a mega mistake if you thought they were. Even though Janco attributed brisk hiring to companies focusing on business expansion, more realistically they reflect the marketplace's supply-and-demand dynamics. For example, large numbers of baby boomers retiring each year certainly have something to do with it.

Digging deeper, however, job confidence among IT workers is far from ebullient, according to the most recent survey conducted by IT staffing and outsourcing firm Hudson.

Compared with a base score of 100, job confidence among workers in the IT and telecom sectors dropped 6.1 points to a score of 97.4 in December — one of the lowest ratings among techies since Hudson began its monthly phone survey of 9,000 workers in 2003. Hudson said the lowest optimism score was 93.2 in May 2005. The December score was 12.4 points lower than the 109.8 rating those workers registered in December 2006.

The good news is that IT professionals were in a better mood in December than workers in the financial services, accounting, health care and manufacturing fields, Hudson reported.

What do we make of all these numbers? Digest them, but don't take any of them as gospel. Consider that there is a grain of truth in every statistic and news item coming at you. The message is to keep your eyes on the career ball because no one knows what's ahead.

No matter how solid you think your situation is, always remember that job security went out with long-playing records and quadraphonic sound. Your job and your career are far from safe.

Avoid reckless spending, and save, save and save. Uppermost, have a what-if emergency plan if you're suddenly called into your boss's office on a sunny Friday and given the proverbial pink slip. It may never happen, but be ready if it does. If New Orleans crisis project managers had had a surefire evacuation plan in place before Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, thousands of people would not have been left homeless and the Big Easy would not have been ravaged the way it was.
Think like a smart project manager who is ready for any contingency and you'll be OK.

As I've said before, always have an ace in the hole. If you're a full-timer, be ready to switch gears and pursue IT contracting gigs. In fact, you ought to be checking out opportunities right now. In an earlier column, I reported that experienced IT contractors do well in poor and recessionary economies.
Change your routines and plug into the IT job sites, especially the niche ones such as HotGigs Staffing Exchange (www.hotgigs.com). In fact, it would be wise to start putting out feelers and building your network in that world right now.

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