Crystal Umbrella

There are few professionals working in the IT skills market who need reminding that 2011 is likely to be an economically challenging year, especially perhaps for those in the IT contracting community who have had job placements in the public sector. Some industry voices believe that the government’s austerity measures may drive many professionals working for umbrella companies out of the public sector, whereas others such as the PCG are less gloomy.  Joining the more optimistic forecasters is the market analysis firm, Gartner, which has just predicted that IT spending worldwide is set to increase to $3.6 trillion in 2011.

Gartner’s Research Vice-President, Richard Gordon, explained that this figure represents a rise of 5.1 per cent on last year. In 2010, the global IT spend reached $3.4 billion. Even though the recovery remains slow, with a “sluggish growth outlook” in major mature economies such as Western Europe and the US, Mr Gordon maintained that the global economic situation is nonetheless improving. Commenting on his company’s prediction of a rise in worldwide IT spending, he said that IT is widely regarded as “an important factor in business growth strategies,” fundamentally helping to enable cost reduction and cost optimisation.

The global economy is now repairing itself, a process which will still take several years, but according to Mr Gartner, there is every reason to suppose that IT will play a major part in this process and that there will be “continued healthy spending” on it.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 10th, 2011 at 9:18 am and is filed under General, Umbrella Companies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.