Information technology is dishing out an increasing total of bonuses this year.  The average in the industry for 2011 was $8,769 and is expected to raise in 2012 with unemployment not much of a factor in the field, according to a report in InfoWorld.

The unemployment mark for tech pros fell in the third quarter from 4.2 percent to 3.3 percent from the third quarter of 2011.  This data is courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

IT has really taken off in Silicon Valley.  As a result, bonuses in that area check in at $12,500, way above the national average thanks to data from Dice, an IT job board.  The bonuses come to more people as well, as 38 percent of IT workers in Silicon Valley receive a bonus check compared to the country average of approximately 33 percent.

Dice did a survey to gauge whether or not the bonuses would be bigger or smaller.  37 percent expected a bigger payday while 18 percent thought they might dwindle.

Those who have the most experience usually receive the bonus.  “The key threshold appears to be six years of experience. After that milestone, more than 50 percent of tech professionals told us they are bonus-eligible,” says Alice Hill, Dice’s managing director.

Dice’s numbers exhibit that 16 percent of professionals believe they will see a larger bonus than 2011 due to switching companies.

While the national unemployment mark hovers around 8 percent, the IT industry has had no such troubles.  Dice states 86,732 job postings in IT, compared to 81,860 in 2011.  For each and every month for the last 12, the mark has been upwards of 80,000.
Included in this, contract positions have been on the rise as well.  For the month of November, 52,870 of the listings are full-time, permanent sports.  In terms of contract roles, there are 37,169.  Over 17,000 positions were created in technology consulting in this year’s third quarter.  Through September, that division has seen a boost in 56,000 new jobs.  “Ten straight quarters of job gains for technology consultants is no small feat. On-demand talent continues to be a dominant theme in this recovery,” Hill says.

Those who possess great programming skills are in high demand as well.  Programmers who are skilled in Android have seen job listings rise one-third since 2011 while virtualization-related jobs are on a tremendous upward trend.

There has also been a recent demand for devops, which are workers who decrease development time, save money and remove issues between projects and operation.  Last December, there were 1,349 listings for those roles.  Two months ago, the number was 1,429.