Jenaya Little

James MacDonald:

– Welcome to the Newy Tech Jobs Update for June 2020. Right now, we’re coming out of the restrictions of COVID, but potentially looking at more restrictions again in the very near future, and it’s a bit of a same, same story for June with May.

So, we had 86 jobs posted in the technology scene in Newcastle on Seek. That is too off the month before, so very, very similar numbers, down 2% month on month, but not a great deal of change there. So traditionally, we see June being a very strong month from a job posting perspective. There are companies trying to use excess budget that they’ve got from the financial year, a lot of project work or contractors tend to uptick in June. We haven’t seen that this year.

We haven’t really seen an uptick in the contractor space whatsoever. The most popular roles that were being advertised during June this year was really the IT, help desk, and support space. Once again, a bit of a continuation, with more and more companies working remotely, having the internal capability to make sure that everyone is able to work remotely, and people are being supported from a technology perspective, so we didn’t see that same uptick as we would normally expect through June.

So when you have a look at that year on year, we’re down 26% based on June 2019, and so, really didn’t see that uptick that you normally do see in June. Obviously, a lot of companies still have some hesitations around hiring with, with the COVID situations going on at the moment.

As a continuation of that, 90% of the roles being advertised are permanent, so once again, companies that are hiring are looking to those long-term hires, as opposed to the shorter term contracting or temporary gigs. So once again, for candidates out there, those long-term permanent opportunities are there.

They’re not there at the same rate that they were earlier this year or last year, but we’re still seeing a reasonable amount of job postings going on in the technology scene. I think technology has been less effected than a lot of other industries, which is a good sign.

Hopefully we see a bit of a growth in July. July, once again, new financial year, new budgets. It is a time for a lot of companies to start hiring again, and adding to their technology teams, so hopefully, we do see a bit of an uptick there. Once again, I think would be a little bit dependent on what does happen with restrictions, COVID-19, the continuation of that, and how businesses are being affected.

So I mentioned help desk was the most popular roles being advertised. Outside of help desk, the other two, three most popular are in the dev space. Again, once again, software developers, always in demand in Newcastle. Then, we’re looking at a little bit in the architect and security space, which is nice, so that higher end of town. That’s nice that there’s a little bit more senior roles. It’s nice to see some of them being advertised, and companies investing from that perspective, so it’s a nice little change there, which we haven’t seen many architect roles being advertised in the prior couple of months, so a really good change there, and exciting to see that.

Hopefully might be a sign of more project work to flow on after that. So when you have a look at actually who’s advertising, it’s predominantly private advertisers, again. That’s a bit of a trend we’ve seen over the last couple of months, just seeing companies advertising on Seek for themselves. 66% of all roles are being advertised by companies themselves. This time last year, it was actually about the 44% mark, so that’s a pretty big change from 44 to 66. I guess it’s a continuation of the COVID situation that’s going on at the moment, companies trying to reduce costs. I think companies going to market themselves, there is still a fair chunk there of recruitment advertising, hiring in technology marketing.

Newcastle is still difficult. We’re still candidate short. Recruiters obviously going over and above just posting an ad on Seek to find those candidates for companies. So in the recruitment market in general, technology is doing quite well. We’re definitely having some success here with Newy Tech People. We’ve brought Linda on over the past couple of weeks, and she’s having some early success with us, as well. I think the technology scene in general is strong, has been more resilient than a lot of other industries, as I mentioned earlier, and I think we’re going to see a bit of growth in that new financial year, July onwards, hopefully a little bit more confidence from a business perspective, more companies investing in technology projects and people.

So that’s a wrap for June 2020. Pretty well, a bit of the same, same story overall, not overly positive, but not overly negative. I think there’s a lot of people within that set it steady state at the moment, trying to figure out what goes on with COVID restrictions, how businesses are going to be long-term affected. So as a whole though, I think technology in general, there’s a lot of companies that are, have dealt with it really well. Working remotely is, has become the norm, and people seem, people and companies seem to be having some success with that. They hopefully will see some continuation of that and some more growth as we roll into the new financial year.

Hope you’re staying safe, hope you are enjoying your working from home time if you are working remotely, and I’ll be back this time next month with another update, cheers.

James MacDonald:

– Hey, James MacDonald here and welcome to another episode of, the “Newy Tech Jobs” update. This time we’re looking at May, 2020. And it is a more positive story than last month. So in April, we recorded the biggest fall and also the lowest jobs ever since we started recording these. So very good news that it’s an uptick, if it wasn’t we’d really be doom and gloom. But it’s nice we’re seeing, a 60% rise month on month. So it’s a pretty significant rise. But we are still down 32% year on year. So 32% year on year, just shows that, hey, COVID-19 is still having an effect but there is some more positivity where it looks like we’ve seen the worst of it from a job activity perspective and there are companies starting to see some confidence in hiring again.

Overall, there was 88 jobs posted in the Newcastle tech scene, during May. The type of jobs being advertised are predominantly permanent, so 90% of the roles being advertised were permanent. Again what we’re seeing is, if companies are prepared to hire at the moment they are hiring in a permanent fashion, they’re looking to get people on board for the longer term, the exceptions to that, are the 10% of roles that are advertising in the sort of contracting or temp space are predominantly in the help desk space in around trying to get some support in for the now, getting some tech support to come and help people during this period. So that would be the one exception but predominantly permanent roles across the board in the Newcastle tech scene.

When it comes to who’s advertising roles, the trend has continued for an uptick with private advertising, advertising more than recruiters. Back in last year, and there was definitely a trend to probably skew 60/40 to the recruiters and now it’s sort of flipped, it’s 68% of the roles were being advertised by private advertisers and 32% roles by recruiters.

Again, I think that ties in to a couple of things we were talking about last month, cost cutting, for one, companies are trying to hire themselves at the moment. And cut their recruitment costs down. If possible, I would be interested to sort of see how this trend continues as the market becomes more and more competitive.

We have had some candidates come onto the market through redundancies and things like that. So maybe it is a little bit easier to recruit some roles at the moment. But I would say across the board, the Newcastle tech scene, is still candidate short. I would say there’s more opportunities than there are really quality tech talent in Newcastle. But we are seeing a little bit of a trend for some people coming out of Sydney back to Newcastle as well over the last month. So that’s an exciting story for the Newcastle’s technology scene bringing more talent back to our market. So let’s hope we can see some more of that.

When it comes to the type of roles being advertised. 27% of the roles were advertised in the help desk and supports space. So I think it just continues the trend and a lot of companies are working remotely at the moment. A lot of companies trying to set up and support their staff during this period. So making sure that their staff is supported to work remotely does require quite a bit of intensive time from a technology perspective, and companies are hiring to sort of build up that tech support capability within their businesses.

The second most popular roles being advertised were software developers, they never fall away in Newcastle, software developers are in such a talent shortage in Newcastle, especially in the 80K to 120K mark. So in that sort of mid to senior mark, there’s less opportunities for senior developers over 120 K, in that sort of 80 to 120.

There are more companies advertising, more companies looking than there is talent available at the moment. And that has been the trend over the past six to 12 months at least. The only sort of outlier, I guess, for the jobs being advertised last month were security roles. We had six security roles being advertised. So, there is more companies starting to look at that sort of security, cyber security as a very real need for their teams.

We’re seeing more and more, still speckled, but more and more security needs in the Newcastle scene so it will be nice to see that continue I know the cybersecurity group launched last year and that’s continuing to build as well. So it’s a nice little trend to see security being valued within the Newcastle technology scene. That’s the summary for the Newcastle scene across the month of May 2020. Definitely a positive story. Positive uptick from the depths of April.

Let’s hope it continues throughout June. June and July tend to be really strong months from an advertising perspective and companies trying to hire, either they are trying to use what budgets left from last year or the current financial year? Or when July hits new budget’s hit and approvals for new roles can come on board and July tends to be one of the biggest months for hiring just in general but definitely in the technology scene. So let’s hope for some more positivity over the next two months.

Hope you’re taking care of yourselves I hope working from home. If you’re still doing that is treating you well and you’re managing to get through this period.

If you’ve got any questions about anything that’s going on in the Newcastle Tech Scene, feel free to reach out 0427 107 796 is my mobile number or james@newytechpeople.com.au

Thank you, speak to you next month, cheers.