According to a year-end survey by security software developer Symantec, half of corporate IT managers state that their data center operations are understaffed, 18% said that their data centers were extremely short of staffing — and upper management is crying for even bigger cutbacks.

The annual survey was conducted with IT and network managers at over 1,7000 companies worldwide. More than 30% of the companies reported cutbacks in IT over the last year, even as the mission for the department has gotten bigger, with such issues as mobile computing and cloud computing.

The big problem here is that routine data security policies will be neglected as IT and network staffers get more and more loaded on their plates. In part, the war with would-be data thieves and hackers keeps escalating even as the resources for the defense are decreasing. The irony is that the Symantec story comes just as another survey by accounting firm Ernst & Young declares that most firms have increasing concerns about data security.