Employees in the local IT industry, reluctant to change their current job, analysis says

According to the research “Attracting IT candidates in 2023”, carried out by Prohuman together with BestJobs between February and April 2023, the adequate salary offer manages to tip the balance in the decision to change jobs, despite the trend of caution noted among profile candidates.

Thus, employees in the IT industry are reserved in the decision to change their current job (approximately 1 in 3 do not think of leaving for another company), they want a salary increase that takes into account inflation (over 20% of current salary) and a flexible schedule and fringe benefits. The number of women employed in IT is also expected to increase.

The study was conducted among 267 respondents, employees and freelancers in IT&C, engineering, marketing, as well as in the IT departments in such sectors as: BPO/SSC, Accounting / Financial / Audit, Manufacturing, Production, Retail, Entertainment, Banking, Services, Telecom.

The main trend noticed after the centralization of the answers obtained refers to the reluctance of candidates to change their job taking into account the salary level in the market (28% of the respondents), as well as the counteroffer from the current workplace (23%), but the decision can be decisively influenced – according to 46% of the respondents – by a salary increase of more than 20% offered by a new professional opportunity.

The opinion of the audience regarding the adaptation of companies to the increase in inflation is divided, with 56% of respondents who believe that organizations have not carried out this adaptation process, while 40% answered that this adaptation translated into a salary increase or by offering a mix of salary increases and extra benefits.

But the general perception of the IT employees who participated in this research is related to the lack of visibility regarding the plans of the company they work with, to the overall picture of the organization’s activity. Thus, 35% of respondents do not know if IT personnel restructuring is announced in the company this year, and 51% believe, from personal experience, that the organization has plans to increase the number of IT employees in 2023.

A topic on which the majority of the audience agreed is the most attractive benefit from a professional point of view: the possibility of a flexible work schedule (39%). This does not necessarily mean the possibility of working remotely. To the question “What is the biggest motivation in the decision to accept a new job?”, the remote work system gathered only 15% of the answers, compared to the salary benefits, in proportion to 46%.

Conversely, when considering benefits at the current workplace, the preference for flexible working hours (39%) ranked well ahead of other options such as learning and development programmes, holiday vouchers, company share investment plans or activities for well-being.

An extremely gratifying aspect is the increase in the number of female employees with IT expertise in companies, almost a third of respondents (31%) being of the opinion that between 20% and 40% of team members are women, and 23% opted for the answer “between 40% and 60%”.

“The IT area gained more and more ground in our activity, so we considered it necessary to study this field regularly. Candidates’ needs and wants seen with such clarity help recruiters more effectively solve the puzzle of IT workforce placement in a market that is rapidly growing in both size and demand on both sides. And thanks to carrying out this study in partnership with BestJobs, which has always been an important one for the services that Prohuman offers, we managed to obtain a centralization of some very relevant data about the current situation in the IT area,” said Răzvan Zglobiu, Head of Sales and Talent Acquisition, Prohuman APT.