2023 Technology Employment Estimates and Outlook

How do you analyze the current state of the French IT market?

After the first half of 2022, which was a continuation of an exceptional year in 2021, with an extremely dynamic IT market and a very high vacancy volume, we observed a second half that was still dynamic, but more cautious. If companies still have technology needs, they are generally slightly smaller than in the first half of 2022.

And above all, they take more time in the decision-making process. Companies currently lack visibility into the coming months. They need more time to start new projects. The market has reached such a level of dynamism that this slight slowdown is not at all a source of concern for this start of the 2023 academic year.

What do you think are the prospects for IT professionals in 2023?

At the start of this new year, several trends are coming together. On the one hand, certain signs announce more difficulties in hiring certain profiles, and on the other hand, the market continues to remain very dynamic. We are no longer in the general euphoria of early 2022, but we see no reason for IT employment to decline in 2023.

Despite the current economic and energy crises, many technology sectors face such labor and skills shortages that we should not experience a jobs crisis in 2023. Companies need to keep hiring.

What are the most attractive sectors that should perform well in the coming months?

In our analysis of today’s IT market, there is no one industry or type of business that stands out. We have large groups, SMEs and startups who entrust us with a large number of vacancies, as well as others who decide to temporarily freeze their hiring at the beginning of the year.

Smaller structures face more pressure and tend to be particularly demanding in the recruitment process or more cautious in hiring a new employee.

Major groups are digesting their hiring for 2022 and are showing caution by being opportunistic on certain shortage profiles or matching their current digital projects. In contrast, SMEs and ETIs continue to invest.

Companies are facing a talent shortage in technology occupations. What do you think are the main reasons for this?

IT has struggled to attract talent from science backgrounds over the past 15 years. In addition, science courses are neglected by students or not sufficiently encouraged by our education system.

If training in this area is increasingly developing to compensate for the shortage, there is nevertheless a double problem:

• First of all, IT is a constantly evolving sector. If 4-5 years ago, companies’ needs were more focused on infrastructure, today cyber security is at the center of employers’ expectations. Therefore, it is necessary to train the future cyber experts, which takes time for inexperienced candidates to become available.
• Then there’s the uncompressed lag time to train future digital professionals and see them hit the job market. It takes 4-5 years to train and make an educated promotion. However, in 4-5 years, companies’ technologies and needs develop.

As long as we don’t have a strong enough profile pool trained in these tech skills, IT will continue to lack talent.

What solutions can help them fix this situation to get more referrals?

More ongoing training is needed to support employee progress. To attract more IT candidates, companies can emphasize the skills that prospective hires will develop in the projects they will undertake and offer them a training program to refresh or develop certain technical know-how. This is an arm that is unfortunately not within the reach of all structures.

Another solution: invest in the training of young student profiles or people in professional retraining. Many organizations are looking for partners and coaches to support and train these learners in market methods and tools, with greater employability and undeniable time savings at the end of the work-study program.

How are companies coping with the impact of technology turnover and retaining talent?

Candidates are indeed highly variable and sought after by companies. You should be able to accept that a tech worker changes jobs on average every 2-3 years. Average turnover is estimated at 25% to 30% per year, making it the highest in the business and on par with commercial functions.

To combat this phenomenon, we recommend that CIOs and HRDs:

• Track market trends and benchmark against similar companies,
• Have a yearly updated salary grid to stay competitive,
• Get advice on predicting sector/business specific movements.

What are the main contracts offered by IT companies?

In the first level profiles (technical / IT support), we have approximately 50% temporary assignments and 50% permanent contracts.

For positions requiring specialized experience and skills, the share of self-employment has grown strongly in recent years, accounting for approximately 35% of the market, compared to 65% for permanent contracts.

Freelancing is truly a solution for companies in the midst of a talent shortage. They are generally senior and expert profiles who can manage projects on advanced technologies, while salaried employment is more general in nature. They also support the structure that needs resources on the project, build updates, launch site redesigns, etc.

Our recommendation for recruiters looking for specific profiles: hire a freelancer for 3-4 months to test a profile on a mission and then convert it to a permanent contract. If not, this gives them time to search for a CDI profile in parallel to meet their needs.

What career opportunities do you think are available for future candidates in 2023?

We have a non-moving base with volume searches in infrastructure and development related profiles in IT and all computer languages.

For 2023, we also see a number of requests for specific technologies, such as:

• Mainly on skilled profiles in SAP,
• On cloud solutions, ERP (Microsoft, Salesforce),
• To strengthen work related to cyber security, IT security.

The last word?

IT recruiting is a real “game” and can be particularly time-consuming and difficult, especially if your HR departments don’t have IT recruiting experience or your operations staff isn’t used to hiring.

Be accompanied by recruitment professionals and specialized firms to save time and energy on your future IT recruitments!