Forrester Says Tech Downturn Is "Unofficially Over" 130
alphadogg writes "The US IT market will grow by 6.6% as high-tech spending rebounds in 2010, according to Forrester Research's latest estimates. The research firm based its projections on data reported for 2009, though its fourth quarter numbers are incomplete. Forrester says hints of a recovery surfaced in the third quarter, and now the company expects the global IT market to grow by 8.1% in 2010. Forrester's US and Global IT Market Outlook: Q4 2009 reads: 'The tech downturn of 2008 and 2009 is unofficially over, while the Q3 2009 data for the US and the global market showed continued declines in tech purchases (as we expected). We predict that the Q4 2009 data will show a small increase in buying activity, or at worst, just a small decline.'"
Soup is good food (Score:4, Insightful)
Quoting Soup is good food by the dead kennedys;
We're sorry
You'll just have to leave
Unemployment runs out after just six weeks
How does it feel to be a budget cut?
You're snipped
You no longer exist
Your number's been purged from our central computer
So we can rig the facts
And sweep you under the rug
See our chart? Unemployment's going down
If that ruins your life that's your problem
=====
I guess it's going up, depending on who's perspective you see it from.
Tech whining (Score:1, Insightful)
Tech workers are comparable well payed and in a good position. Haiti had a sudden downturn--that's real problems. Perspective and all until we all hit Singularity.
Re:Anectodal info (Score:4, Insightful)
Or don't get bonuses, or don't get the resources/personnel/equipment they need, or entrepreneurs...
I wasn't affected by the recession until I was laid off, awesome how that works, eh? It's a boolean state, either you're employed and not feeling the effects, or you're not employed and can't get a new job at the same level as before, or do get one, but get picked out of far more applicants than before. At which point, your boolean downturn.effect() is reset to zero.
Recovery? (Score:2, Insightful)
"The most likely alternative to our forecast that the U.S. and global IT markets will recover in 2010 is a faltering tech market due to a double-dip recession that returns in 2010 after a brief two- to three-quarter economic recovery," the report reads. "Should this happen, U.S. tech purchases would decline by 3% to 4% in 2010, with a second-half decline offsetting a first-half tech revival."
Maybe if the economy has a double dip recession the politicians will learn that their stimulus plans and the continued inflationary policy of the Fed are bad ideas. By then I think it will be too late, the dollar is on a fast pace to destruction. Perhaps that's Obama's job creation plan, debase the currency so much that it will be too expensive to outsource to Indian and Russian labor. Delaying a market correction will only make it worse, Government intervention cause and prolonged the Great Depression.
Re:It may be true (Score:4, Insightful)
if it pays the bills and keeps me from being homeless...I would...and I'm sure the millions who are unemployed on the brink would agree with me.
Re:Anectodal info (Score:4, Insightful)
That was the top of this year ;-) (Score:3, Insightful)
The new reality. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think Forrester is being overly optimistic. CIOs may be ready and willing to spend, but it does not mean the business (read: owner, CEO/Board, CFO) are going to jump on the bandwagon. Each purchase/hire will need to undergo a serious cost-benefit evaluation, and the lowest possible dollar paid. This is a result not only of the recession of the past year-plus, but also the very real and serious concerns businesses have of what upcoming legislation (and associated regulatory environments) is going to cost them.
Re:The new reality. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention continued interest in offshoring almost all actual production capacity (ie, programming, industry, etc)... I'm still competing with folks overseas who cost much less.
Re:Anectodal info (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tech whining (Score:4, Insightful)
Much easier said if you were employed mid-year 2008 and remained so throughout the 'downturn'.
That 'downturn' hurt, bad. Being out of work for 6 months would have been nice, but there were weeks at a time when there were no tech related positions, and nobody was interested in hiring someone with "professional" work experience for even tasks such as menial labor or food service. Good luck finding work out of your general area, too: my observation has been that there are so many IT types out of work, most places aren't even bothering to interview non-locals. There are just too many qualified applicants to pick from locally.
(I suspect concern that I would "up and leave" at the drop of a hat/promise of decent employment.) It's been 2 years, and at this point, I suspect there's not an end in sight due to the extended sabbatical.
The most extravegant thing I've bought since around March 08 was the occasional six pack of beer - maybe every other month. So yeah, that's not a terribly "good position".
Re:Anectodal info (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, every time the population grows, demand grows. Sure we need new jobs for them, but we also need new stores, new dry-cleaners, new wineries, new restaurants and a bunch of other stuff. On average population growth is job neutral.
The only problem is when you get an increase of workers in an area that doesn't need them. If somehow 10 million doctors moved to the US, it would cause problems. This should be easy to see, if you think about it a bit. Those doctors would need to retrain themselves in order to fit in to the economy (or the doctors they are replacing would).
Re:Anectodal info (Score:4, Insightful)
If you have an established career, then it's merely difficult (but not impossible) to find a good job these days. New grads have it worse than everyone else in this economy... not only do they have to compete with each other, but they also have to compete with hordes of other people who have years of experience and are clamoring for the same jobs as the grads because they are desperate. I was told that a degree would give me a huge advantage, only to graduate right in time for this huge recession. (or minor depression, depending on who you talk to) I blame the university for lying to me just as much as I blame myself for actually believing them. New grads can send out a million resumes for all the good it would do, and it's not going to make much of a difference if there's a huge glut of unemployed workers with real-world experience on the job market. It's easy to lose hope and stop trying after 6 months or more of no results. These days, employers have all the advantages and can afford to be choosy.
You don't need jobs, you need wealth (Score:3, Insightful)
100,000 - 150,000 new jobs to be created each month just to stay even.
No, what you need is more wealth.
That is, you will need the resources those people will consume over their lifetime: food, textiles, space, vehicles, energy, and so forth. Plus, those people need to have it.
Of course, a sensible thing to ask of those people is to do something in return for being given those resources, e.g. get a job. But that's not a necessity.
Imagine you had robots who could do all the work we need humans for now, and because they were well built, we only rarely needed to repair, dispose and replace them. And the robot nerds volunteer to do this work on behalf of all of society.
Then there's no need for more jobs just because you have more people. Maybe one job per n people, but n >> 1.
Point being: there's no inherent value in jobs, because your job can be doing something that doesn't have any inherent value. The classical example being "9-1: dig ditch; 1-5: fill it again". What has value is the resources people want.
Re:Anectodal info (Score:3, Insightful)
It's trivially demonstrable by counting the number of people working that our population has 25 million more people not working now than in the year 2000.
Clearly something changed in the last 10 years compared to the previous 200.