Historically recruitment levels following a recession have never returned to the same levelas before the recession. This was the situation experienced in the early 1990’s and in therecession following on from year 2000. This surprising figure is due to a number of factorswhich include better development tools becoming available which lead to improvedproductivity, more reliable software and hardware needing considerably less support andoperations staff to run computer centres. Added into this is the wholesale movement touse offshore companies for both development and operational support which has had amajor impact on the opportunities for home grown IT personnel. Retail, alongside financeis one that has suffered more than most other sectors.