59% of IT Employers to Add Temporary or Contract Workers in 2015

consulting workThe year 2015 is looking good for skilled IT professionals, as a new survey reports that more than half  (59%) of IT employers will add temporary or contract workers this year.

Plus, 54% of IT employers plan to add full-time permanent staff this year, and about 75% will offer higher starting salaries for new employees, according to CareerBuilder’s annual IT forecast. Nine out of 10 will raise wages for current employees.

About 60% plan to break the conventional 9-to-5, 40-hour workweek, offering employees more flexible work arrangements this year, mainly in the form of alternate schedules, compressed workweeks, summer hours, job sharing and sabbaticals.

Healthcare IT Leaders President Brad Elster agrees the job outlook remains strong for contract healthcare IT consultants. “We’re seeing EMR work level off compared to recent years, but health systems seem to be shifting their spend to other priorities like ERP, Revenue Cycle and Analytics projects,” said Elster.

Still, despite all of those perks, IT employers may run into challenges finding IT talent. Sixty-two percent of IT employers believe there’s a significant gap between the skills they need at their organization and the skills job candidates have, and 48 percent have open positions for which they cannot find qualified candidates. More than half (54 percent) have job vacancies that stay open for 12 weeks or longer.

“As companies rely more on technology to inform business decisions, enhance services and stay competitive, they need employees with the skills to navigate the increasingly complex technologies that are developing,” said CareerBuilder CTO Eric Presley. “With that in mind, employers are focusing on ways to bridge the skills gap at their organizations, from investing in employees’ education to enticing talent with higher pay and more flexibility.”

This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder among 145 hiring managers and human resource professionals from the IT industry (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) between November 4 and December 2, 2014 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions).