An annual study on hiring and compensation trends revealed that IT professionals may have more negotiating power than they think.
According to the study, conducted by IT staffing consultant Robert Half International and online job site, CareerBuilder.com, 81 percent of hiring managers said it is equally or more difficult to find qualified candidates than it was 12 months ago.
The report surmises that a skills shortage is paying off for workers, as 52 percent of hiring managers who were having trouble recruiting cited a shortage of qualified professionals as the primary culprit.
Nearly two-fifths of hiring managers said they planned to increase starting salaries in the next year to attract new talent.
"Forty-five percent of workers reported their compensation has increased in the last year, yet a much smaller number are willing to ask for a better deal going forward, likely due to insecurities about the United States economy and job market," said Matt Ferguson, CEO of Chicago-based CareerBuilder.com.
"The United States continues to add jobs and businesses are struggling with a shrinking labor pool. Workers who are not maximizing the earning potential of those opportunities are literally selling themselves short."
Thirty-seven percent of hiring managers in the survey said that professional and technical staff-level positions were the hardest to fill, followed by administrative/clerical workers (16 percent), directors, managers or supervisors (15 percent), temporary/contract workers (12 percent) and CIOs, chief financial officers and CEOs (4 percent).
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