Public sector contractors affected by contract drought

32% of businesses in the private sector are not at all interested in employing them, according to the Corporate Job Creation Survey 2011 from Barclays. A further 25% are not very interested in taking them on.

54% of smaller firms, with a turnover of less than £5 million, are the least likely to hire ex-public sector employees. However, an equal percentage of large companies with a turnover of between £100 million and £500 million would be interested in a public sector hire.

The main reason for this lack of enthusiasm amongst private sector employers is that they do not think public sector workers possess the correct skills. 33% said public sector employees are not well equipped and another 20% said they were not at all equipped to work in private sector.

Duncan Scott, the CIO of Control Risks, said he thought public sector IT contractors would find it especially hard to transition to the private sector because of the different environment and way of working.

Meanwhile, a new survey from UPMentors reveals that the lack of people with specialist IT skills has left 61% of organisations struggling to meet the change in business demand. A further 15% said they need to educate their existing employees on new developments in IT. Only 2% of IT managers currently think it is a priority to improve staff retention and boost morale.

Julian Holmes, a co-founder of UPMentors, said that IT managers clearly want to prioritise maintaining a high level of skills this year but it's important that they invest in the right person. It can be a challenge to find top talent and employers may consider using freelancers to boost their capability.

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