By Bill Hethcock, Staff Writer at the Dallas Business Journal
Jim Thompson, president and CEO of The InSource Group, a Dallas-based information technology staffing and placement company, says there are more openings in the IT job market in North Texas than there are candidates to fill them. That’s a problem for all businesses because it slows job growth and economic expansion across the board.
What is the state of the IT market in North Texas? There are significant numbers of vacancies in IT positions every single month. I think the situation is only going to get worse, exacerbated by baby boomers retiring, a limited number of H1-B visas to employ non-citizens for jobs that require specialized training or experience, and the lack of STEM graduates who are staying in this country and taking those jobs.
What will that mean for wages? You’re going to see real upward pressure on salaries for these kind of skills. Not only are people going to have to pay more, but individuals who are seeking these IT jobs are going to be faced with multiple offers. So the quality of the work environment, the flexibility they might have, the length of their commute, any reimbursements for technical training or degree-related things all are going to start coming into play.
So, what’s an employer to do to attract the best in the IT field? They have to make sure they are competitive across a variety of different fronts, of which compensation is one. They need to be able to hire quickly. If they have a long, bureaucratic process with some significant number of interviews or steps they have to go through, these high-demand candidates will be gone. They will be off the market.