Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/29/evans_data_developer_population_growth_2009/

Growth in developer population set back

Pandemic not blamed

By Austin Modine

Posted in Software, 29th April 2009 22:06 GMT

The population growth of working developers will take a major hit during 2009 in most industrialized economies, according to analyst Evans Data.

The researcher said it's dropped growth projections based on estimations made 12 months ago by a whopping 78 per cent for North America, Japan and Western Europe. The impact on "the rest of the world" will be less severe, but still had its growth projections slashed by 35 per cent versus last year, Evans stated.

On a global basis, we were forecasting in 2009 about 15.2 million developers," said Evans chief executive John Andrews. "Presently we're forecasting 14.6 million."

Evans largely blames the drop on a flagging economy, which has resulted in less spending on IT and communications and also produced layoffs. The analyst said it's also seeing less students in industrialized nations graduate in computer science. The population of developers in China and India, however, are expected to grow by 22 per cent from 2009 to 2011 according to Evans.

Andrews said the economies are more insulated from the larger IT spending freeze and are also benefitting from a younger population of developers combined with outsourcing by other countries. ®