Microsoft predicts 80,000 IT jobs

Oct 6 2009 by Iain Laing, The Journal

ALMOST 80,000 new jobs will be created over the next four years as thousands of new technology firms set up in business in the UK, technology giant Microsoft has forecast.

Research by the firm suggested more than £50 billion will be spent on information technology (IT) this year and will increase by 1.8% a year between now and 2013.

The IT market will drive the creation of nearly 2,500 new businesses and 78,200 new jobs between the end of this year and 2013, according to the study. Most of the new companies will be small and locally-owned organisations, and the jobs will be highly skilled and high-quality, said the report.

Microsoft underwent a “cultural reformation“ when it felt the effect of the global recession, chief executive Steve Ballmer said yesterday.

“Consumer spending was impacted, we had to decide how to cut. We suffered the first revenue declines in our company history. They were a few per cent,” he said during a visit to London.

“I had a journalist say to me: ’Severe revenue decline’ and I had to concede that any revenue decline felt severe if you’ve never had one.

“It was a cultural reformation for us,” he said in the CBI annual lecture.

Microsoft “locked“ its research and development budget and made sure it kept enough money to continue to establish new businesses, he said.

“We are trying to give Google a little competition in the search business. They may be trying to give us a little competition in some other ways.”

Ballmer said he was optimistic about the future but called for greater investment in future generations.

He said: “I am super-enthusiastic about the possibilities for the future, for business at large and for information technology as a propellant of that.”

He added that IT would play a critical part in the future and in economic recovery.