Perhaps the more than $40 billion sale of St. Louis's flagship company, Anheuser-Busch, to Belgian brewer InBev ultimately made sense in today's globalized marketplace. But it was still a body blow to the morale of a city that's looking for any bright employment news it can find. It's still unknown if the InBev buyout will cost many local jobs, but cost-cutting through new efficiencies and the elimination of redundancies - in IT and elsewhere - seems inevitable.
| 'Dice currently lists about 900 available tech jobs in St. Louis - a drop of some 23 percent since January.' |
In June, BusinessWeek identified St. Louis as the 43rd "best city for tech jobs," not a particularly stellar ranking, with the leading tech job category being computer systems design. Meanwhile, recruiter Robert Half Technology is actually optimistic about the city these days. Its most recent quarterly survey of CIO hiring plans found 13 percent of St. Louis-area CIOs intend to bring on staff in the fourth quarter, a figure above the national average and 9th of the 30 metro areas RHT tracks.
Nevertheless, our quick survey of job offerings at the city's leading employers was uninspiring. At Charter Communications, there were only four St. Louis-based IT jobs available in October. While BJC HealthCare offered 51 jobs, most were low-level positions. Boeing, which operates its Integrated Defense Systems in St. Louis, had four entry-level jobs available. Anheuser-Busch had none. Perhaps, as is the case in many cities, IT experts looking for new career opportunities in St. Louis should explore the education arena. Washington University in St. Louis, which does significant research in technology, is listing 23 IT jobs as of this writing.
A bit of brighter news is the announcement local electronics manufacturer Emerson will spend more than $60 million to build a state-of-the-art, 35,000 square-foot data center here. The company currently employs 2,400 people in the city and will likely hire more.
Dice currently lists 914 available tech jobs in St. Louis, a drop of about 23 percent since January. The Dice Salary Guide reports the average statewide IT salary in Missouri is $62,910, up 1.6 percent in the past year, but still among the lowest of all the areas Dice tracks. Another less-than-encouraging statistic: The local unemployment rate is hovering at around 6.5 percent.
The Midwest as a whole isn't doing much better. Among the 10 industry sectors surveyed in the fourth-quarter by the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, employers in seven sectors express decreased optimism about hiring through the end of the year, including recruiters in tech-heavy categories such as Transportation/Public Utilities, Wholesale/Retail Trade, Finance/Insurance/Real Estate, Education and Services.
Still, there are resources to turn to and places to go if you're looking for an IT job in St. Louis. The best place to start is Greater St. Louis Works, a public/private partnership striving to make sure the city attracts, develops, and retains IT talent. Its Web site is a good resource for professionals, entrepreneurs, students, and employers who want to know what's going on in the city. According to reports quoted at the site, employers are most in need of hardware engineers, software engineers, network and computer systems administrators, and programmers.
Explore the site to get the latest local gossip. In a very tough hiring market, every little bit of information can help.
St. Louis pob postings have trended down through most of 2008 |
 |
 |
Many hiring companies who use Dice search our resume database before posting jobs. That means many of the best jobs are never even posted. Post your resume now, and be sure not to miss any opportunities.