IT Market Research - May 2023

This year has been quite turbulent for the IT market worldwide. There are many external and internal events affecting the development of the IT scene in our country too. We are all aware that the market is shaken both in terms of supply and demand. Large global layoffs have also affected Serbia, inflation is "eating" into profit margins and "reducing" the value of wages, large world banks are collapsing... All of these are factors that have led to the crisis being felt in the IT world in Serbia.

First, let's sum up the facts that are already known to everyone, and also look at several sources that strive to view the situation from different angles and provide a summary of the situation so that we all know where we stand.

• Attracting employees - the biggest challenge of IT companies - https://www.helloworld.rs/blog...
• The current crisis has not affected the employment of seniors - https://www.netokracija.rs/sen...
• How inflation affects the growth of wages in IT - https://www.netokracija.rs/it-...
• Ninth IT research on wages and benefits - https://www.netokracija.rs/fen...
• IT layoffs in Serbia - where are we now and what awaits us by the end of the year? https://www.netokracija.rs/it-...
• Layoffs in the region - https://www.reddit.com/r/progr...

From all these articles, here are my top 5 observations:

The number of ads for IT positions has significantly dropped compared to last year - 50% less
Senior people are more often applying to ads than before, looking for more stable companies that don't fluctuate much - the number of applications has increased by 58%
Developers are more ready to work for "more realistic" salaries than a year ago - The salary range for senior positions is from 2,000 - 4,500 EUR
Most outsourcing companies have a large number of IT experts "on the bench"
There is not an expected salary growth as we all thought in 2022. Instead, a leveling due to inflation is expected.

To confirm these observations, and to check the pulse every month, Tihomir and I decided to conduct a survey every month as Viking Code, where we collect important information and share it with everyone so we can make better and more informed decisions.

We have decided to (at least for now) use personal contacts of leading people in the companies we know, to have as relevant data as possible.

The research was attended by:

• 2 Recruiting companies
• 2 smaller IT companies
• 2 medium IT companies
• 2 IT corporations

Questions were related to the previous month. Since we will be doing this every subsequent month, we want to see the trend of the key things that interest us all.

Here are the main conclusions of the research:

1. No visible growth in demand for new staff - everyone agrees
2. The trend of decreasing demand is very evident - 87.5%
3. There is a much greater supply of available candidates for employment - 87.5%
4. Mainly mediors and seniors are sought - expected
5. Expectations for wages are more realistic and there is no trend of wage growth - 87.5%
6. Employers are more ready to offer lower wages than expected - 75%

How do these results seem to you? Did anything surprise you? We will be repeating this survey every month in order to have the most relevant data.

If you want to be a part of this research, contact us at [email protected].
Note: Our idea is for the data to be of high quality, we don't want to conduct mass surveys, everyone who wants to collaborate will receive raw data by email.