Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Survey: Tech executives' confidence, hiring take off

By James M. Connolly

Executives in New England tech companies are reporting new levels of confidence and hiring plans, according to Mass High Tech’s quarterly Pulse Survey.

The survey, which tracks the opinions of executives of companies that are listed in MHT’s New England Technology Directory, showed strong jumps in executives’ confidence in growth within their technology sector and in their expected growth in workforce.

During the first quarter, just over a third of respondents (33.1 percent) said they are “very confident” about growth in their tech sector, compared with just 22.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Meanwhile, 72.9 percent of the 437 Q1 respondents said they plan to grow their local workforce, compared with 64.7 percent of the 523 Q4 respondents. In addition, those saying that they plan to increase their local workforce by at least 20 percent rose from 21.4 percent of respondents in Q4 to 29.5 percent in Q1, an increase of eight percentage points.

It’s worth noting that some of the significant positive bumps came from the telecom sector, which has generally tracked lower than other industries in terms of hiring and confidence over the past two years. In telecom, 32.6 percent of respondents said they plan to growth their workforce by more than 20 percent, which is almost triple the figure for Q4 (12.7 percent).

When executives were asked which type of exit or growth event is likely over the next two years, there were moderate jumps of four or five percentage points in “Venture/Equity Financing” (19.7 percent) and “International Expansion” (20.3 percent).

For the first time, MHT asked how staffing levels today compare with the height of the recession in 2009 and about the executives’ own compensation for the new year.

Of the 397 respondents on the staffing question, 40.3 percent said staffing is level with Q1 of 2009. However, 27.7 percent said staffing in their companies is up by at least 10 percent. Only 4.8 percent said staffing is down by 10 percent or more.
The bulk of the 372 respondents on the compensation question said their 2011 compensation is level with 2010 (46.2 percent). That response rate was fairly consistent across the various sectors, including Internet, telecom, bio/medtech, software and cleantech. Only 15.9 percent of respondents said their 2011 compensation increased by 5 percent or more.