Job seekers got a glimpse of positive news last week when the monthly job report showed that the economy added 288,000 jobs in June, significantly beating the expectations of many economists. This caused the national unemployment rate to fall to 6.1 percent.
Part of the reason why this is being hailed as such good news is because in addition to job growth, statistics show that the size of the workforce remained steady—and may have even grown. Previously, drops in the unemployment rate were often caused by people leaving the labor force, rather than real growth in the economy.
Given that this is the strongest the U.S. labor market has been since before the recession, the time has never been better for CIOs and IT hiring managers to build up their departments. According to a recent article in CIO Magazine, the vast majority of those who responded to a survey on this issue said that they plans to hire additional IT professionals in the second half of this year.
Of course, whether or not this comes to pass depends on the availability of qualified individuals for these jobs.
"This is different from what I've seen in other hiring cycles, because I've never seen as many IT projects being funded as I am right now," said John Reed, senior executive director of Robert Half Technology. "More projects mean a need for more people, so demand is up, but the supply remains stagnant."
This is an area where VAR Staffing can help organizations by identifying and recruiting the impactful talent that is needed to meet business challenges.
