IT Job Market Best Since 2000
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
More than 130,000 new IT jobs were created in the last 12 months.
A Janco analysis based on a review of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics has found 131,800 new information technology jobs were created in the past year. Janco found a net increase of 62,600 IT jobs in the past three months alone, which represents the best growth since 2000.
“Computer science and IT professionals is a very strong job markets as 14,500 jobs were added last month versus 10,200 in December,” said M.V. Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates Inc. in a press release. “In the last 12 months 131,800 jobs were added which is a really good sign especially compared with last year this time when only 75,500 jobs were added thru the same period. In our professional opinion, the recovery is well under way for IT Pros.”
CIOs have been given the green light to begin hiring, and many have open requisitions they cannot fill due to a lack of good candidates, Janulaitis said. “There is a real shortage of IT pros with experience in cloud based applications and mobile computing. In addition our 2015 IT salary survey, which was just released two weeks ago, shows that salaries have increased an average of 2.4 percent for all IT professionals. We are finding that there is an upward pressure on compensation for the first time since 2002.”
In the Healthcare IT sector, employment is on the rise and spending is anticipated to reach $40 billion by the end of 2015, according to the Janco analysis. A majority of the growth is fostered by spending on electronic health record (EHR) systems, mobile health applications, and efforts to comply with new government standards.
Boosted by increased spending on the necessary healthcare software to support EHR systems, the U.S. healthcare IT market experienced growth rates of about 24 percent per year from 2012 to 2014, the study found. Spending on healthcare software rose 20.5 percent from $6.8 billion in 2010 to a projected $8.2 billion in 2011.
The North American healthcare information technology (HCIT) market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.4 percent to reach $31.3 billion by 2017 from $21.9 billion in 2012 in response to increasing demand for clinical information technology, and administrative solutions and services.
Despite its huge potential, the impact of IT on health care in the past decade has been modest. The report highlights not only the untapped potential in healthcare IT, but also outlines the major constraints its growth, including the high cost of health care IT solutions, high maintenance and service costs, interoperability issues, shortage of IT professionals, poor standard protocols such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and unprecedented growing incidences of data breaches of patient information.