New figures show more businesses are looking at hiring in the ACT, as recruitment consultants say consultant firms "cannot hire enough" staff.
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The Manpower employment outlook survey of ACT employers found their intention to hire more staff in the next few months was up by 12 percentage points on the last quarter to 5 per cent, the first positive reading of the year.
The outlook puts the ACT third in the country, behind Queensland and Victoria.
Vanessa Attridge, 30, of Kingston, is one of a stream of workers who have left the public service for consultancy firms in the last 12 months, and says she has not looked back.
She said some people's fear of leaving the public sector was based on the current economic climate, but many may be "more nervous than they need to be".
Simon Cox, Director at Canberra recruitment firm HorizonOne, works across public and private sectors in Canberra and said the Manpower figures were in line with what he has seen in the market.
"There is a lot of large IT projects, there is a lot of business transformation work, and that flows through to the private sector and consulting firms, who have expanded significantly to cover increased demand," he said.
He said while his firm had been hit by the commonwealth hiring freeze last year, he believed the jobs market has been headed for recovery since August last year.
"The market pretty well clicked back into gear and it's been a steady incline since then. This year would be one of our busiest years to date if not our busiest,' he said.
He said the upturn was definitely "led by consulting".
"They can't get enough people at the moment to handle the demand," he said.
But he said a lot of the employment was still temporary with government going out to consulting and recruitment firms to source people when they were not able to add to head counts.
Jim Roy, Hays Canberra's Regional Director, said he too had seen improved hiring conditions in the last quarter, but agreed that the market for permanent jobs was "still not going gangbusters".
"It is more positive in Canberra certainly than it was 12 months ago and has changed in quarter two this year, even compared to quarter one. But employers are still using flexible hiring, the try before you buy approach or getting people in to tackle backlogged work," he said.
"Recruitment companies are benefiting in the interim and the consultancies are benefiting," he said.
Apart from consulting, he had also seen the number of construction jobs pick up.
"Construction was the hardest hit, but that seems to have changed due to some key projects," he said.
"Canberra is the most livable city in the world, why would anyone want to leave?"
She said she was satisfied by her choice.
"There are great opportunities in the private sector, I think there is a much more accelerated path for growth and progression," she said.
Cautioning against too much enthusiasm, Managing Director of the ManpowerGroup ANZ, Lincoln Crawley, said the figures were a decrease on a similar period last year.
"Hiring in the ACT continues to be volatile due to ongoing governmental shifts. We...continue to see hiring vary as a result of enduring workforce adjustments, including an increase in outsourced services," he said.
Across the country, the picture is not so rosy for job seekers.
The pace of hiring is expected to ease with 78 per cent of employers nationally reporting no intention of making changes to their workforce in the coming three months.
