IT hiring expected to grow in '11

San Antonio is set to be a major player in the innovation sector in 2011 and firms just as Genesis Networks Enterprises and Rackspace Hosting Inc. are anticipating growth.

The economic downturn

As companies rebound from the economic downturn, four states including Texas are expected to see more information innovation jobs become available while the first quarter of 2011.

And with San Antonio poised to become a major player in the innovation sector, local firms just as Genesis Networks Enterprises and Rackspace Hosting Inc. are anticipating growth in the new year, leading to more jobs.

Recent employment report from Robert Half Innovation

According to a recent employment report from Robert Half Innovation, 14 percent of chief information officers in the West South Central region plan to add IT positions while the first quarter of 2011, during 3 percent plan to cut staff. The figure is up 11 percentage points from the first quarter of 2010 when it was projected that only 3 percent of CIOs in the region would add positions.

Soowan Scheuermann, marketing manager for the staffing firm, said he expects the hiring spurt because companies are investing more in innovation to improve efficiency.

"Companies want to stay in front in terms of corporate competitiveness," he said. "So they're upgrading software, hardware, and they're looking for people who can help secure the company's network. There's going to be a sustained demand for network administrators, help-desk desktop support and emerging technologies for virtualization."

The San Antonio metro area

In the San Antonio metro area, the outlook varies. The Texas Workforce Commission calculated the annual employment for 2008 and the projected annual employment for 2018 and found that telecommunications jobs are expected to drop 3.6 percent in those 10 years, during data processing and hosting services positions will jump 47.6 percent. Some innovation firms already are gearing up to start hiring.

San Antonio-based Genesis Networks recently announced it plans to add about 150 jobs - usually in Abilene, now about 30 are expected to become available in January in San Antonio. The additional employees are needed because the IT solutions company is anticipating the start of a long-term project straightway month.

VMC Consulting Inc. as well announced in early December that it plans to open a branch at Brooks City-Base then month that will bring about 600 jobs to the Alamo City. The Washington state company is looking to hire support personnel, quality assurance agents and supervisors at a rate of 100 people per month. Many of the jobs will be tier 1 help-desk positions, which, according to Robert Half Research, pay about $30,000 per year locally.

San Antonio-based Rackspace employs 2,077 people in the city and hired more than 800 local IT professionals in 2010. Though officials with the hosting and cloud-computing company would not say how many people they expect to hire in the coming months, the organization is poised to add local jobs, they said.

The future of the local IT industry

Although experts are optimistic about the future of the local IT industry, the research sector makes up just 2 percent of jobs in the San Antonio metro area.

Janie Gonzalez, CEO of San Antonio-based Webhead, said because other companies have started spending money again, the cyber service company has gained business, which has helped her company grow.

"We've seen some growth locally," she said. "For the last four years, private industry has been very hesitant to spend. So however we have systems that have been Band-Aided for years and are ripe for upgrades to newer and more secure research."