"IT employment remains strong . . . demand for IT professionals remains robust," according to Mark Roberts, CEO of the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses (NACCB).
NACCB Survey
Information Technology (IT) employment reached an all-time high in December 2007 and was essentially unchanged in January 2008. On a year-over-year basis, IT employment grew nearly eight percent from January 2007. More than 3.8 million workers are employed in the IT marketplace in the United States. A press release (pdf) is available for review.
CIO Survey
In addition, recruiting skilled IT workers remains a challenge for many Chief Information Officers (CIOs), according to a new survey developed by Robert Half Technology.
CIOs were asked the following question:
"Of the following staffing issues within the IT department, which do you consider to be your greatest challenge as a CIO?"The top two responses were as follows:
- Finding skilled technology professionals (24%)
- Providing staff with adequate professional development resources to keep skills current (23%)
Beantown Web Findings
These two surveys confirm Beantown Web's findings that the technology marketplace in the greater Boston area remains strong, despite an apparent slowdown in the economy.
The monthly Beantown Web survey of the Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston reveals that 18 of the top 20 skills all posted increases in job postings from early February to early March. The only two skills that were mentioned less frequently in job postings were Perl and PHP. This may be partially reflective of Microsoft's marketing efforts to promote ASP.NET as an alternative server side scripting environment.
The Big Winner
Ajax was the biggest mover of the month jumping three spots from #16 to #13. Ajax was mentioned in 40 more job descriptions this month than last!
The Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston can be found in the right-hand column along with a new indicator of movement (up or down) from the previous month.
Training Opportunities
Adobe officially launched Flex 3.0 and AIR 1.0 late last month. While these technologies hold long-term promise for Web developers, neither skill demonstrates a strong demand currently. Neither skill cracks the Top 40 with Adobe Flex being mentioned in only 10 job descriptions and Adobe AIR mentioned in zero. Nonetheless, check out Adobe Developer Week 2008 to learn more about online training opportunities for these technologies.
On the other hand, SQL Server, C# and ASP.NET remain three of the Top 10 Web skills most in-demand. To get an overview of how these technologies work together to create interactive Web-base applications, check out a FREE online course offered at the HP Learning Center.
ASP.NET 2.0: Building Applications offers the following lessons beginning this week:
- Lesson 1: Take advantage of ASP.NET
- Lesson 2: Designing an ASP.NET application
- Lesson 3: ASP database tutorial: design your database
- Lesson 4: Create a connection to your database and retrieve data
- Lesson 5: Manipulate data
- Lesson 6: Understand application security and deployment, and widgets
NOTE: The Center for Digital Imaging Arts is announcing a new Web Developer certificate program at its campus in Waltham this Saturday at 10:00 am.
According to Dice, the number of Boston area technology job listings dropped nine percent in the fourth quarter. Listings declined in December -- the first drop since June. Seasonal factors are partially to blame.
Boston came up short at 
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