Diana Jordan, Los Angeles branch manager for IT recruiter Sapphire Technologies, believes that for the rest of the year the IT job outlook in her region is "so-so."

"Hiring has slowed down a bit depending on the industry you are working in. Obviously some of our mortgage industry clients are feeling the pinch," she observes. Asked to identify pockets of activity, Jordan says, "A lot of project management offices are being started, and require a lot of project managers and business analysts. Java, .NET and front-end developers are still very much in demand in this market as well, because of the digital media industry."

IT staffing consultancy Robert Half Technology's fourth-quarter IT Hiring Index is a touch more optimistic, finding that 19 percent of Los Angeles CIOs plan to make new hires this quarter. That's a big leap from last quarter, and the second-highest number among all 30 cities Robert Half tracks.

The quarterly Manpower Employment Outlook Survey swings the other way, seeing fourth-quarter hiring across all industries as a wash. From October to December, 23 percent of the companies interviewed plan to hire more employees, while 21 percent expect to reduce their payrolls, according to Manpower spokesperson Lee Fossey.

On Dice, LA job listings took a serious tumble at the end of last year. Since then, they've been coming back, most notably in 2007's first quarter. By June, more than 5,000 area jobs were available on Dice. Today, the number is closer to 4,600.

Where should job hunters be looking? The LA Economic Development Council, a local business organization, has found that LA County is actually outstripping its neighbors in overall economic activity. By the end of the year the county should see its highest number of total jobs - 4,142,600 - since 1990. The LAEDC says that best growth prospects over the next two years include professional, scientific, and technical services (which include accounting, law, engineering, computer software design and scientific R&D), health services, and leisure and hospitality services. International trade is also on an upswing, with ports seeing renewed vigor.

That list overlaps somewhat with the one provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which identifies health care, financial services, construction, and software development and maintenance as hot areas.

As for hot companies, Inc. magazine's fastest growers include Occam Networks, CaseStack and Cogent Systems. Cogent Systems, a producer of biometric devices, recently listed jobs in South Pasadena for a computer software engineer, a back-end program software developer, a project manager, a GUI software program developer, and a system support engineer.

One frequent Dice user reports he's seen increased interest in C#/.NET and Java skills in online postings. He interprets that as a good sign for short-term growth for the region. "The range of companies looking for these skills is very broad," he says.  "Finance, government, health care, tech, transportation, you name it. I'm seeing everything from start-ups to well established brick-and-mortar companies looking." He also notes that his job searches have taken on a new urgency since his small consulting firm recently lost a large client who outsourced the work to India.
 
That's always hard to hear, but as Sapphire's Jordan puts it, "They say the 'new economy' of Los Angeles County is technology-driven and includes career opportunities in biomed, digital information technology, and environmental technology." Are the opportunities as "abundant" as Jordan claims? Perhaps not in the short term. However, LA County remains one of the nation's most dynamic and fastest-growing regions, so 2008 should be strong.