IT Pros More Optimistic About Raises

A survey by skills-assessment firm Brainbench says 62% of respondents expect fatter paychecks next year.
By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee



After two years of no raises for many IT workers, most IT pros are optimistic about getting fatter paychecks in 2004, according to a new report.
Based on the 2,150 IT professionals who participated in online skills-assessment firm Brainbench's 2003 salary survey, only 11% expect to receive no raises in 2004. That's positive thinking, compared with the 43% who reported they received no raises in 2003 and the 36% who didn't get raises in 2002.
Sixty-two percent say they expect increases ranging from 1% to 5% in 2004. In 2003, 66% received raises of 3% or less.
'After two years of a negative trend, there seems to be a positive trend--new optimism developing,' says Mike Russiello, Brainbench's president and CEO. Among the most optimistic of IT professionals about getting raises are those who work as IT generalists, database pros, and in computer systems management and operations. The next group of positive-thinkers include application developers, and network management and administration professionals.
Among the other findings was a growing disparity between the pay of male and female IT professionals. At employers with less than $5 billion in revenue, men earn about $10,000 more than woman in similar positions. The pay gap is even bigger at companies of $1 billion or less--about $20,000, Russiello says. The gap between men's and women's pay is smallest at companies bigger than "

IT salary survey: Hopes for a better 2004
More than four out of 10 U.S. IT workers received no raises in 2003



By Grant Gross, IDG News Service December 23, 2003



WASHINGTON - More than four out of 10 U.S. IT workers received no raises during 2003, but 60 percent expect to receive a raise of at least 3 percent in 2004, according to a new survey released by skills assessment firm Brainbench.


Only 12 percent of IT workers surveyed by Brainbench expect no raise in 2004, while about 14 percent expect raises of 8 percent or more, according to the e-mail survey of more than 2,100 registered members of Brainbench in the U.S. Those numbers show a more optimistic IT workforce following a year that was even worse that 2002 for IT salaries, said Mike Russiello, president and chief executive officer of Brainbench, based in Chantilly, Virginia.

"The look toward the future part of the survey was surprisingly optimistic," Russiello said. "After three years of declining raises, you could take one view ... that it's going to get better."

IT hiring managers may want to pay attention to those salary expectations in 2004, Russiello said. "As a manager, I look at that, and think, 'so these guys have expectations that had better be met or we could lose some talent,'" he added. "These folks must be seeing something to make them optimistic."

IT workers are choosing to think positively about salaries although they are getting at best a mixed message about demand for IT workers in the U.S., he added. While there are signs of the U.S. economy improving and predictions of increased IT spending in 2004, the media continues to report of a growing trend among IT companies to outsource IT jobs or move them overseas, he noted.

"I hear from the IT guys in our group that the job market has heated up for them," Russiello added. "If they want to leave and find work elsewhere, it's there for them. They don't have to hunker down anymore; that seems to be attitude."

In 2003, 43 percent of IT workers received no raises, while another 23 percent received raises between 1 and 3 percent, according to the survey, released last week. Just 9 percent received raises of more than 8 percent. In 2002, 36 percent of those responding to the Brainbench survey received no raises, 26 percent received raises of between 1 and 3 percent, and another 28 percent received raises between 3 and 8 percent.

Elsewhere in the survey, 27 percent of respondents indicated they received an IT certification in the past year. Only 6 percent said the main motivation for the certification was to receive a higher salary, while 49 percent said their motivation was to increase their skills. Another 21 percent said their motivation was to move to a new job or a new job focus, and 11 percent said the certification was necessary because they perceived a lack of their own skills.

Brainbench did not ask why its 2002 respondents received certifications, but 65 percent of those receiving certifications in the 2002 survey received raises of 5 percent or more, according to the 2002 survey. About 28 percent of respondents in 2002 received certifications.

Money appears to be less of a motivating factor for certifications than in the past, with certifications becoming less attractive to hiring managers since the late '90s, Russiello said. IT hiring managers during the past couple of years have tended to look for experience, instead of only certifications, he said.

A lessened focus on earning certifications as a way to get salary increases may indicate the maturing of the IT workforce, he added.

"It almost makes you think the IT workforce has morphed a little bit, and is no longer full of new entrants who are only there because they heard IT was the place to make a lot of money," Russiello said. "It's more people who genuinely enjoy and have dedicated themselves to being a professional in this space."

Brainbench's customers are companies looking to improve the skills of their IT staffs, either by testing the skills of current staff or testing the skills of IT job applicants, and Russiello said he's optimistic about the coming year. "We're hopeful for '04," Russiello said. "I'd definitely say we've seen an uptick in (customer) activity in the last three months."

U.S. ECONO-BOOM FINALLY REACHES NYC

December 24, 2003 -- Business in the Big Apple - and the entire country- is booming.
New York was lagging behind the rest of the United States, but now seems to be catching up, experts said yesterday, as the government reported that the economy nationwide has expanded at the fastest rate in nearly 20 years,

Marc Goloven, a senior regional economist for JPMorgan Chase in Manhattan, said the city economy has dramatically improved in the past few months.

"Already, there seem to be some definitive signs that the New York City economy is emerging from its protracted . . . recession," he said. "The economic quality is definitely warming up in the city."

He said the surge will continue and "should result in . . . a declining unemployment rate."

Former State Comptroller Ned Regan agreed, saying the city’s economy is "turning the corner."

"Productivity has been phenomenal," said Regan.

It looks like, at long last, the [city] economy is picking up. There’s good signs of hiring, more than we’ve seen in a year and a half."

Charles Gargano, head of the Empire State Development Corp., was even more enthusiastic.

"New York City is in a great position economically right now," said Gargano, whose state-run organization was created to encourage business growth. "We’re starting to reap the benefits of the nation’s economic rebound. People are spending more and companies are expanding. There’s strong momentum."

As for the country as a whole, the U.S. Commerce Department reported yesterday that the gross domestic product grew at an impressive 8.2 percent rate during the third quarter.

It was the biggest spurt in 20 years.

"Growth was boosted by consumer spending, by business investment in equipment and software, by investment in housing, and by exports," the department said in a statement.

And many economic analysts are optimistic that the GDP in the current quarter could grow faster than 5 percent, resulting in the best back-to-back growth rates since the 1990s.

Government Says Tech Firms Recovering
By Ted Bridis, AP Technology Writer
December 15, 2003



WASHINGTON (AP)—The U.S. technology industry is showing healthy growth for the first time since parts of the Internet sector collapsed two years ago, but jobs and wages still are down, the Bush administration says in a new report on the digital economy.

"This isn't another train coming. This really is the light at the end of the tunnel," Phil Bond, undersecretary for technology at the Commerce Department, said Monday. "Technology is firmly on the comeback trail."

In the report, due for public release Tuesday, the government predicted steady but moderate growth among technology companies and said technology investments are helping fuel growth in other areas. Manufacturing plants with computer networks, for example, are more productive than those without, even taking other factors into account.

But the report also said technology employment is recovering slowly. It said the number of technology workers dropped by 11.2 percent since 2000 to 4.8 million employees—compared with a decline of less than 2 percent in all private industries.

Average annual wages among technology employees dropped in 2002 to $67,440—down 1.3 percent from $68,330 the previous year—even though average wages for all private-sector workers increased by 1 percent to $36,520.

"Tech is back," said Harris Miller, head of the Information Technology Association of America, a leading trade group. "It's not back to the levels of the bubble, but clearly tech spending is coming back in a meaningful way."

The report said computer and semiconductor makers are rebounding from major losses over the previous two years, but communications equipment makers are still having problems.

The administration said sales by U.S. technology companies and their overseas affiliates topped $1 trillion in 2002, despite a record foreign trade deficit. It said that combination apparently was the result of U.S. companies using offshore production, a controversial trend.

Welcome to the Party

So on December 7, I am confident in saying that the labor recovery has started and only terrorism and rampant snow will affect it. We hada big snow in New York the past few days but that will just affect Christmas numbers at the stores. People will be shopping later (no one was on the roads yesterday) and will be buying as prices come down further. That will eventually ripple through the system but the recovery train (I believe) has left the track.

All the firms I'm speaking with are spending on new hiring and on getting in consultants NOW (and for the past few months). Large and small, they're all doing it. Wall Street is back . . . but wages are not. They will remain modest for a awhile yet while firms still operate with the belief that they can demand wageconcessions and cap offers.

That will start to end next eyar as firms discover that they lose applicants that they want because they have MULTIPLE OFFERS. This phenomena has been rarely seen for several years but, I expect, will be back in 2004.

It's like saying welcome to the party but you're the first guests here.

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: NOVEMBER 2003
United States Department of Labor


Employment continued to trend up in November and the unemployment rate, at 5.9 percent, was essentially unchanged from October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Nonfarm payroll employment rose slightly over the month (57,000)."

Professional and business services employment was little changed in
November. Employment in this industry has increased by 181,000 since December 2002, with temporary help services accounting for about three-fourths of the growth.

New York Post Online Edition: "December 4, 2003 -- New York City's fiscal blues are turning as rosy as Santa's cheeks.

'The city is showing clear signs of economic recovery,' Comptroller Bill Thompson said yesterday.

But he warned, 'We still have a long way to go before the city experiences full economic recovery.'

Thompson said the city dug itself out from a 21/2-year recession in the third quarter of 2003 as the local economy grew at 0.3 percent annual rate. He said that in July and August, the economy drooped - but it rallied in September.

An outside analyst agrees. 'Essentially, things have flattened out so we can say the recession is over,' said Steve Cochrane, director of regional economics at Economy.com

From December 2000 to August 2003, New York's economy shrank 7.9 percent with a loss of 252,000 jobs, Thompson said. "

"Planned layoffs at U.S. firms fell to 99,452 jobs in November from 171,874 in October, job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. said in their monthly job cut report. Job cuts announced so far this year amount to 1,143,406, 17 percent less than the same period a year ago."