Research Brief: The IT Labor Dynamic: A Leading Indicator of Services Opportunities?

Analysis of the IT hiring and labor climate is a critical element in determining where IT services providers should focus efforts in 2011. While overall hiring and labor trends remain similar to 2010 in terms of growth and cuts, front-end skills supporting new application rollouts are moving back to the forefront as cost cutting gives way to innovation and process improvement. ESG believes that a return to new application rollouts and the emergence of cloud computing is driving consulting opportunities in the virtualization and security spaces which track to high demand and labor shortages in these areas. Conversely, a glut of resources in areas of basic administration will drive opportunities for providers targeting the XaaS market.