IT job market grows, but outlook shaky

WASHINGTON: The U.S. high-tech work force grew by two percent last year but demand for computer programmers, tech-support specialists and other high-tech workers continues to erode, according to a survey.

The survey by the Information Technology Association of America found that the country's high-tech job market remains sluggish, despite two consecutive years of work-force growth.

The total high-tech work force grew two percent to 10.5 million jobs between March 2003 and March 2004, the survey found, on top of a 4-percent gain for the year-earlier period.

But employers said they plan to create fewer jobs in the future. While the economy added 1 million new high-tech jobs in 2002 and 493,000 last year, employers anticipate creating only 230,000 jobs this year.

Outsourcing, spiraling health-care costs and an uncertain economic outlook may be preventing employers from adding more jobs, the survey found.

"This is still not the job market America's IT workers have been hoping for," ITAA President Harris Miller said in a statement.

The survey is based on interviews with 500 hiring managers at a range of U.S. businesses, conducted between February 24 and March 23, 2004.