A significant 24 per cent of marketers in the sector anticipate that the size of their marketing function will reduce by the end of the current sales year, double the level seen in the last survey in Spring 2008. One in ten marketers in the sector expects to be recruiting marketing staff, down sharply from the 34 per cent who said they were increasing staff numbers just six months ago.
Yet marketers in the sector were more bullish about their job prospects than any other industry sector, with 49 per cent saying they weren’t worried about their job prospects in the year ahead, and just 29 per cent who were.
Despite being positive about their own prospects, confidence in the UK economy has deteriorated dramatically since Spring 2008, with 71 per cent now saying that economic conditions in the UK will worsen in the year ahead – up sharply from 53 per cent six months ago.
And optimism about their own organisations prospects over the next 12 months has also tumbled. Over a third of marketers in the sector (36 per cent) expect conditions for their own organisation to worsen in the year ahead – significantly more than the 10 per cent seen in the last survey.
Commenting on the findings, David Thorp, Director of Research and Information at The Chartered Institute of Marketing said, “It is disappointing to see such widespread job cuts anticipated in the IT sector. Technology firms need to understand that IT marketers have a key role to play in helping their organisations identify and exploit the opportunities a recession brings. Professional marketers working in the IT sector must create real value for their organisations and measure the effectiveness of their marketing activities, if they are to demonstrate how indispensable they are to their organisations.”