Hiring Insights: How Market Changes Are Affecting Tech Hiring in 2024

The fast-paced technology industry is forever changing, so in today’s article we investigate how market changes are affecting tech hiring in 2024, with Rick van Eeden, our Regional Director.

The Federal Employment Agency reported that job vacancies, at a peak in July 2022 have been increasing during 2023, with vacancies up slightly on the last period. The jobless rate remains unchanged at the highest levels seen since January. Whilst inflation rate has eased to a near 2-year low, the economy shrank in Q2 2023. All this points to an economy that remains volatile, unsurprising considering the economic challenges raised by the war in Ukraine, the global economy higher interest rates and inflation.

However, according to McKinsey, the tech skills shortage continues, with the Netherlands having a relatively high share of hard-to-fill job openings in the tech sector, standing at 56% compared to 47% in Germany, 40% in the USA and 44% in Sweden.

Whilst much of the world has experienced some large-scale tech layoffs over the last 18 months, the Dutch market has remained largely unscathed. According to the Offerzen Software Developer Report less than 4% of their survey respondents in the Netherlands had been retrenched versus 13.2% across the rest of Europe.  This is also reflected in the latest Eures labour market report.  Published in June 2023, the report lists Databank and Network Specialists and Software & Application Engineers as 2 of the top 15 most difficult to fill roles in the Netherlands.

All this points to a highly resilient tech jobs market, as businesses look for skilled, experienced IT developers to support their products and services. Our article highlights the top 3 market insights, and how to incorporate them into your tech hiring strategy.  

·         The importance of training tech professionals.

·         How remote working could close the skills gap.

·         How automation and AI could make your business more resilient.

Tackle the skills shortage by adjusting company mindsets on learning

The rate of technological innovation is rapidly increasing, meaning a developer could have skills that quickly become obsolete, unless they keep up to date with the latest tech releases. One example is how Apache Kafka went from the tenth most commonly selected data solution in 2018 to the second in 2022.

Employers could help facilitate this, through investing in staff upskilling.  By investing in higher levels of training, companies could see a 7 percent higher rate of promotion, and higher staff retention rates. Having enhanced training policies can also attract candidates to want to work for your business, not to mention the big opportunity to improve business agility, by having the latest tech skills available to boost innovation. 

According to the PWC Future of Work 2030 report there is a growing need for skills development. Promoting a learner culture in the Netherlands is crucial in order to foster more equitable skills outcomes and to create more skills-intensive workplaces.  Businesses, the government and other stakeholders will need to work together to ensure skills demands are met, both within and outside of the tech sector.  If they don’t the report warns there will be an increase in the current mismatch between supply and demand.

This is something that the Dutch federal government are acutely aware of.  They have been investing in public-private partnerships to strengthen vocational education and businesses since 2010 and in June 2023 allocated €123m to improving tech skills availability.

Remote working provides great opportunity to close the tech skills gap

Following the pandemic, 44 percent of people returning to work cited flexibility as their top reason for returning, as businesses invested in their IT infrastructure, allowing people to work from home.

Whilst the Netherlands has been consistently ranked No1 on the remote workers index with a remote work culture that started long before COVID, it is a relatively new concept for many countries. Dutch employers could capitalise on that and gain access to a global talent pool.

By introducing a “work from anywhere” policy, you can attract Dutch-speaking tech professionals that have moved away from the Netherlands, or are not based near your local office, giving you access to highly skilled professionals to close your skills gap.

Remote working also increases candidate attraction and retention rates, as workers look for greater work-life balance, avoiding long commutes to the office.

In addition, according to a review by Global Workplace analytics nearly 6 out of 10 employers identified direct cost savings as a significant benefit of remote work. 

Tech professionals are key to business efficiency and navigating economic pressures

While businesses feel the pressure of higher interest rates and inflation, countries like the United States have made mass redundancies. As stated earlier, this isn’t reflected in the Netherlands as the economy remains more stable, but businesses are looking to introduce more efficiency.

Björn Loose, partner at Cavalry Ventures, commented that ChatGPT might help “businesses iterate on their existing product offerings by implementing the algorithm e.g., by managing unstructured data or by simply automating SQL queries and thus become much more efficient in their operations.”

Attracting and retaining skilled IT developers and experts is the key to maintaining market position and introducing more streamlined processes through innovation, automation, and early adoption of AI, where appropriate.

How we can help you create hiring solutions to navigate the market

Do you want more market insights tailored to your business? We can help offer advice around salary and pay rate benchmarking, benefits packages, and the best techniques to attract specialist IT talent.  

We have a talented team of specialist IT recruitment consultants, ready to listen to your requirements.

Call our team today and we will be happy to produce a tailored candidate attraction plan to enhance your workforce. 

 

Find out more about the author: Rick van Eeden