Tech Workers' Confidence Soars

Technology professionals are approaching 12-month highs with respect to their overall job and economic confidence, according to a recent survey from Randstad. In fact, the firm reports that optimism among these workers is the highest among all industries that the company tracks—including health care, finance and accounting, manufacturing, administrative and clerical, and engineering. The resulting "IT Employment Confidence Index" takes into account sentiments about the economy in general, job stability and opportunities, and the future of their current employer, among other factors. "With ongoing technological advancements in cloud computing and others, the IT sector is well-positioned for growth in 2013 and beyond—a sentiment reflected by IT workers' overall confidence measures," says Bob Dickey, executive vice president of technologies at Randstad U.S. It doesn't hurt, Dickey notes, that the unemployment rate for computer hardware engineers is now down to .5 percent and 2.5 percent for software developers. More than 210 professionals in the technology industry took part in the research, which was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Randstad Technologies and Technisource.