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U.S. businesses will add IT staff this year as they start new projects and seek desired skills, such as wireless networking expertise and integration. Harvard Medical School and CareGroup Healthcare System CIO John Halamka plans to hire five new networking, wireless, and security experts this year to help wireless-enable his groups' campuses. Halamka will use wireless networking for radio frequency identification, mobile VoIP, and access to patient files, and each of those applications requires different security profiles and attention to configuration. IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology (RHT) conducted a survey of more than 1,400 CIOs last year, finding 11 percent planned to add employees in the early part of 2005, and IDC estimates an approximately 6 percent increase in IT spending this year. RHT's Katherine Spencer Lee says, "We're continuing to see improvement in the market. It's not yet what it was in the dot-com boom, but it's certainly marked improvement." Because businesses are expanding, people with networking expertise are needed, while Windows and Cisco network administration, security, storage, VoIP, and Web services are also skills of interest. Merger and acquisition activity is increasing the need for integration skills. Many companies are also taking a second look at offshore outsourcing and deciding that in-house resources are worth the expense, says Foote Partners President David Foote. Linux and security skills are still in demand, but less so than last year because there are more people available to fill these positions. RHT's survey found that specialties generating the most grow were networking (20 percent), information security (13 percent), help desk/end user support (11 percent), and applications development (10 percent).

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http://www.nwfusion.com/careers/2005/012405man.html?ts