Some 27,000 personnel have disappeared from Britain's IT workforce
over the past 12 months, marking the industry's first fall in
employment for five years.
Figures released during the middle of 1999 revealed that almost
887,000 people were working in IT. This year however, an analysis
of the Government's labour force survey by the IT National Training
Organisation (ITNTO) revealed that total to have shrunk to
860,000.
According to the ITNTO's analysis, the number of IT managers in
employment fell by 12,000 this last year to 180,000, as did the
number of analysts/programmers working, which went down from
304,000 to 292,000. A decrease of 10,000 employees to 58,000 was
also noted among computer engineers.
The diminishing IT workforce appears to have affected all areas
of the economy including manufacturing, government and the
financial sector. Rather than indicating a mass exodus from the
industry however, the ITNTO believes this drop in IT employment is
due to the finalisation of Y2K projects around the country.
"This fall in figures does not reflect an economic down turn or
any great shake-out in the IT industry," comments John O'Sullivan,
director of the ITNTO. "Rather, it is a transient effect of Y2K
work petering out after the artificially high growth of the
industry over the previous year." Internet service firms did note
an increase in staff during the last quarter, while the number of
software engineers and computer operators in employment grew from
180,000 to 186,000 and 142,000 to 144,000 respectively.