| July 2006 |
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| Dice job postings in Denver are up 21% in Q2 |
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| The Rocky Mountain state’s technology job market has long benefited from a combination of government contracts, aerospace ingenuity and big time telecom firms. Now the sector is surging again, in part, because of a rise in small and medium size businesses.
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“It has been coming back for three years and, in some ways, it is better than it was in the late 90’s,” said John Deets, Denver’s branch manager of Sapphire Technologies, a national IT staffing firm. “It is nice to have Denver where it should be and that has a lot to do with the growth of medium and small size companies.”
While Deets cites the increased entrepreneurial drive of the smaller businesses in the region, Denver’s tech-heavy economy also remains dependent on large enterprises such as aerospace. Heavy hitters like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Ball Aerospace & Technologies are still top tier employers in the region.
Colorado had about 24,600 private-sector aerospace workers in 2005. Nearly two-thirds of the aerospace companies in Colorado are located in the Denver area, according to the Metro Denver EDC.
And the combination of old and new has the region’s tech sector thriving.
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| "It is nice to have Denver where it should be and that has a lot to do with the growth of medium and small size companies" |
| - John Deets, Denver's branch manager of Sapphire Technologies |
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Technology job listings on Dice, the leading technology career site, for the Denver area increased an impressive 21% during the past three-month period.
And businesses are noticing the pinch the thriving job market has placed on their staffing needs.
“There is a continual need for us to be looking for quality talent,” said Ken Vanbenbark, a director of Galileo International, a leading global distribution system and subsidiary of Cendant.
For the second consecutive quarter, like many other metro regions in the United States, the problem is no longer a scarcity of jobs in Denver but rather a shortage of qualified candidates available to fill growing staffing needs.
“Clients having success hiring realize that once you identify a candidate there may only be a day or two to make the offer,” said John Stuart, vice president of Sapphire Technologies, an IT staffing firm with a regional office in Denver. “They need to have their ducks in a row when they start this process, otherwise their candidate won’t be around for the offer.”
And those in the IT market continue to make good money. Tech professionals in the Denver area reported earning an average salary of $74,300 in 2005, according to a survey by Dice. This was 5.7% more than the average U.S. tech salary of $70,300.
And it’s no longer just the certified IT worker commanding the big bucks, according to Foote Partners, an IT compensation and workforce management research firm.
“It’s an accelerating trend, the fact that IT skills without certification are growing in value 70% greater than certified skills over the past year,” said David Foote, president and chief research officer for Foote Partners. “While technical skills are still important, employers are not placing the same premium on certification of these skills they once did.”
However, the news coming from Denver’s tech sector isn’t all cheery. Earlier this month big player Sun Microsystems laid-off 122 Colorado workers from jobs at Sun’s Broomfield and Louisville offices, according to the Colorado Department of Labor.
“Despite a few setbacks in Denver it still has so much going for it right now,” said Scot Melland, CEO of Dice.
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