Outsourcing increases job competition

An extensive survey of IT jobs by management consultants Janco Associates makes for grim reading for IT professionals across the board, says VNUnet.

Overall salary and benefit levels are down across the industry, while the competition for jobs is fierce, thanks to layoffs by large companies and pressure from outsourcing.

Salaries for CIOs have fallen over 6% from last year, with staff in medium-sized firms seeing a fall of nearly 5%. The only areas of benefits that rose on average were the provision of stock options, up 5%, and an increase in company car allowances.

Filipino software executives say their infrastructure and ties to the US give them an edge over their bigger rivals, but a seasoned talent pool is lacking, states Business Week.

As the Philippine software sector looks for new avenues for growth, it needs to be more nimble than China or India in looking for new opportunities. According to the Philippine Software Industry Association, the industry had $423 million in revenue from both outsourced and product software in 2007, up from $200 million in 2005, and currently employs around 28 000 software developers.

In 2009, most of its business will come from customer support activities such as project maintenance and customer-requested modifications, with a smattering of new-product sales.

Outsourcing spend in the Gulf countries is expected to touch $503 million, an increase of 21.8% compared to $413 million in 2008 despite the ongoing financial turmoil and stiff competition, said an industry expert, according to Gulf News.

"The UAE is expected to retain the lead with a 25% increase to $225 million, followed by Saudi Arabia with 20.62% to $193 million”, said Jyoti Lalchandani, VP and regional MD of International Data Corporation, MEA and Turkey.

He said big challenges like the shortage of qualified staff, inflation, cost-per-unit and telecom costs are limiting the growth of outsourcing among the Gulf countries.