The depth of the slump in the IT jobs market was underlined this
week when Barclays Bank announced plans to cut the pay rates of 800
IT contract staff by 20%.
The cut, the largest single rate cut imposed on IT contractors by
an employer to date, will shave millions of pounds from the bank's
annual wages bill. It is likely to inspire similar cuts by other
employers in the financial services sector.
Barclays has told IT staff that it needs to make savings in order
to meet its long-standing target of reducing costs across the
Barclays group by £1bn by 2003.
The cutbacks will apply to all contractors, including programme
managers, testing staff and developers, irrespective of their
skills.
The bank said it was confident that temporary staff with specialist
skills would not seek better-paid jobs elsewhere. "We hope that all
contractors will remain contractors. We are not looking to reduce
the number of contractors," a spokesman said.
The cutbacks reflect three years of declining IT employment and
growing competition in the jobs market.
"Contractors have been experiencing rate cuts for some time," said
a spokesman for the Professional Contractors Group. "Sadly we are
experiencing a difficult time in the IT market. It is not helped by
the Government's actions on IR35 and visa relaxations. It is
evidence that there is no skills shortage."