NATIONAL ICT Australia, which hired hundreds of tech refugees from the dotcom crash, may become the happy hunting ground for telecoms equipment vendors hungry for staff.
Ericsson, Alcatel and Cisco are in the people market after being named for juicy contracts as part of Telstra's $11 billion network overhaul.
The pending departure of NICTA chief operations officer Ric Clark to Alcatel may be the thin end of the wedge.
Mr Clark, the former managing director of Ericsson's research and development operations in Australia, will leave NICTA, the nation's technology research flagship, in January to take up the post of chief technology officer with Alcatel Australia.
With some of Australia's big telecoms and tech vendors on the hunt for talent in an increasingly tight market and NICTA apparently struggling for momentum, some say NICTA could turn out to be a brain bank ripe for raiding, pointing to the numerous former Ericsson and Motorola employees working for the organisation.
NICTA last week refused to comment on Mr Clark's departure, and yesterday did not return calls made by The Australian.
Also driving demand for talent is Telstra's $11 billion next-generation network makeover, which has generated agreements worth $5.5 billion with Alcatel, Ericsson, and Cisco.
It's believed Mr Clark's new employer, Alcatel, which has a $3.5 billion agreement with Telstra, may more than double its Australia and New Zealand staff of 1300 to service the deal.
Ericsson managing director Barry Borzillo said building Telstra's 850MHz 3G mobile network would swell his company's ranks, and recruiting was well under way.
"We have already filled most of the positions," he said.
"Ever since the announcement we have been working feverishly to find the right people.
"If we look at this project as a whole, by the time we get to full swing, there will be something like 1400 people working on it,"
Work on base stations would account for many of the new jobs, with other hot areas including high-level project management, radio frequency and core network design and systems integration.
Mr Borzillo said Ericsson had no specific plan to raid NICTA or any other organisation, but acknowledged that companies sometimes needed to poach.
"It's a fairly small industry relative to the world market. You are always going to see some movement from place to place." Mr Borzillo said.
Asked whether NICTA could be a target, Mr Borzillo said: "The former Ericsson people in NICTA are our former research and development people.
"Whether they fit the bill will depend on what requirements we have. It could be, as the industry is small, that when you want good people, sometimes you have to pinch them from competitors."
Nevertheless, Ericsson tended to recruit from its own ranks, Mr Borzillo said.
"We tend to employ graduates who we train and bring up through the organisation."
About 80 per cent of Ericsson's talent was home-grown through its graduate program, he said.
Ericsson planned to expand its graduate program from 18 in 2005 to 32 in 2006, he said.
Alcatel is on what it calls a recruiting drive. "Alcatel certainly will be recruiting in 2006 and the skills that we will be looking for are varied, including technical, project management, network planning and a range of critical business and support functions around that," marketing and communications director Caroline Betts said.
"There will be a large focus on signing on Australian experts from the telecommunications industry in those areas," she said.
"With the sorts of opportunities in Alcatel at the moment, it's not hard to attract people of the highest calibre."
Carriers say the market for good employees is getting tight.
Optus last week announced it would build its own childcare centres for Optus staff.
"It's a key differentiator in the Australian employment market," a spokeswoman said.
There have been some big changes in NICTA management in 2005.
In May, chief executive Mel Slater quit, to be replaced in an acting capacity by Dr David Skellern.