No Surprise: Companies Cut Tech Budgets

From DICE, April 9, 2009...

Research firm Gartner reports technology spending will fall 3.8 percent worldwide and 1.6 percent in the U.S. this year. That’s down significantly from 2008, which saw a 6.1 percent rise worldwide. It’s also nearly double the decline that occurred when the tech bubble burst in 2001, says CNNMoney.

Meanwhile, companies have started to cut IT budgets, which doesn’t bode well for IT employment. Jobs are being hit particularly hard in sectors like services and finance, which combine to employ 50 percent of the nation’s technology professionals.

Forrester Research estimates U.S. tech jobs will decline by 1.2 percent this year, after three years of at least 2.5 percent growth. They ‘ve already fallen by nearly 1 percent since the November peak, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Year to date, 8,000 tech jobs have been slashed, including 4,100 just last month.

But not all IT jobs are in peril, according to Forrester:

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