Dallas Expected to Lead in Second-Quarter IT Hiring

Top 11 Highly Requested IT Skills

Dallas is expected to be a hotspot of IT job growth during the second quarter, according to a report from Robert Half Technology.

Nationally, it says 14 percent of CIOs plan to expand their IT staffs, 61 percent plan to fill open positions, 22 percent will put hiring plans on hold and 2 percent plan to cut staff. That’s based on telephone interviews with more than 2,300 CIOs nationwide.

In Dallas, however, 22 percent said they’d be adding IT staff, compared with 18 percent in Philadelphia, 17 percent in New York and 13 percent who plan to expand in the Bay Area. You can find reports on various cities here.

“Our research shows that Dallas will be one of the strongest U.S. markets for IT hiring in the coming months,” said Rob Robinson, senior regional vice president of Robert Half Technology in Dallas. “Steady expansion in the healthcare, financial services and high tech sectors has stimulated demand for IT professionals who can help firms remain competitive, especially in the areas of mobile applications development and data analysis.”

In Dallas, 64 percent of CIOs polled said it’s somewhat or very challenging to find the skilled IT pros they need. The most challenging skills to find, they said, were in data/database management (20 percent), networking (12 percent) and applications development (12 percent).

Meanwhile, the annual CEO Business Climate Survey by the San Jose-based Silicon Valley Leadership Group shows the pace of hiring slowing, though that study apparently was not limited to tech companies.

It found 46 percent of companies plan to add staff this year, compared to 50 percent who said so in 2012 and 60 percent in 2011. Ten percent said they would cut staff in 2013, according to SiliconValley.com.

“If Silicon Valley were a car, the foot is still on the accelerator, but that foot has eased off slightly on the gas pedal,” Carl Guardino, president of the leadership group, is quoted in the article. “The economy is still moving at a robust rate, but not quite as quickly as in the past two years.”