Careers: Techies Were Upbeat About Jobs And Finances Last Month, Says Report

Tech professionals were optimistic about their personal finances and in a good mood about jobs last month, according to a new report from IT staffing and outsourcing firm Hudson.

Compared to a base score of 100, IT and telecom workers in March rated their job confidence at 115, up 10.4 points over February. The rating last month was also higher than the score of 111.8 tech workers gave to IT job confidence in March 2005.

Tech pros last month were also more optimistic about their jobs than workers in other industries overall. The national job confidence index was 106.2, down 2 points from February. Hudson conducts monthly phone surveys about jobs and finances with 9,000 workers in several industries, including more than 400 tech professionals.

Only one-fifth of tech workers said they were worried about job security, down from 28% in February, and 77% said they were happy with their jobs, up from 73% last month.

The wallets of techies are also feeling fatter. Only 8% rated their personal finances as poor, down from 14% in February and one of the lowest ratings in about a year.Among the hottest tech workers being sought after are project managers and contract software developers with expertise in ERP, Web services architecture, and .Net, says Kevin Knaul, a Hudson VP.

Also, while IT budgets have been increasing so far this year, additional funding has been earmarked by many companies for contract workers and outsourced talent, as opposed to hiring internal staff, he says. "We think the IT department until 2008 will decrease in size, but IT spending will increase," he says. "IT organizations are changing their focus, acting more like marketing departments, building up core skills, and outsourcing other skills to service providers," he says.