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The Almighty Buck Businesses IT

Techies Migrate in Search of Work 873

prostoalex writes "Tracing the story of one family where the father is employed in the IT field, the Washington Post discusses the current unemployment in the information technology field. For a good reason - for the first time in 30 years the IT unemployment rate exceeded the national average unemployment rate, implying that you have a better chance of getting a job if your field is something other than IT. The journalist does offer a disclaimer, saying that the term 'IT worker' is applied equally to a top-notch scientist in a research lab, to a dot-com startup billionaire, and to a local HTML guru. Relevant employment statistics also shows that layoffs in the IT field were up 60% in the third quarter of 2004."
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Techies Migrate in Search of Work

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  • Come to DC! (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheSync ( 5291 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:03PM (#10768802) Journal
    There are TONS of IT jobs in Washington, DC. If you are willing and capable of getting a security clearance, you can get a job. Getting your first clearance job will be a bit of a challenge, but once you get it, you are set.
    • Re:Come to DC! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Derek Pomery ( 2028 )
      Well, as a non-U.S. citizen working in D.C., I can assure you that cuts both ways.
      I get to pay for Social Security without the hope of getting any,
      get taxed without representation, and am also without hope of being trusted with any security clearance, not even one shared by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in this area.

      Oh well, fortunately knowing what you're doing counts too.
      • Re:Come to DC! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by shawn(at)fsu ( 447153 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:11PM (#10768887) Homepage
        I get to pay for Social Security without the hope of getting any, I thought this applied to anyone under 30?

      • Re:Come to DC! (Score:3, Insightful)

        Lets see... I will probably be considered a bigot for say this. You have several options.

        1. Become a citizen.
        2. Not work in the U.S. and return home.
        3. Stay and pay for the infrastructure that allows you to get to work and enjoy your life style.

        I take issue with your misuse of my country's founding war cry, "taxed without representation". NO ONE HAS REPRESENTATION IN ANY COUNTRY THEY ARE NOT A CITIZEN.

        If it so bad here in the U.S. why stay? It must be better than anywhere else. Even with the taxes.

        I am
    • Re:Come to DC! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kenja ( 541830 )
      Costs to get a security clearance start at around 50,000 and require sponsership. Its not like you can just walk in and fill out a form to get one.
    • by Tangurena ( 576827 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:39PM (#10769201)
      Having spent some time in Colorado Springs last year, I learned that the biggest killer for a security clearance is your credit. Having been out of work in 2001 and 2003/4, my credit score was way down there in the 400s. It is sad that too many employers make a decision as to whether you are a "worthy" hire or not based upon credit.

      All too often, the complaints about "we can't find workers" really translates into "we can't find workers willing to work at those wages" or "we can't find workers with good credit."

      It takes 18-36 months for a clearance. If you have great credit, you can get an "interim clearance" which is a temporary one until the real clearance is done. If you have spotty to rotten credit, you can expect to get turned down. Security officers know that, so your credit score is more important in an interview than whether you have a brain.

      • by C0deM0nkey ( 203681 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:58PM (#10769430)
        It is sad that too many employers make a decision as to whether you are a "worthy" hire or not based upon credit.

        The reason your "creditworthiness" plays a role in determining your clearance is because people with bad credit are more susceptible to exploitation by foreign operatives - the guy/gal who is in a really bad situation financially is more likely to succumb to monetary bribe.

        • by gatkinso ( 15975 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @04:07PM (#10769541)
          Well said.

          The same is true about the lifestype polygraph. You can be a married father and banging strange men at rest stops on the side with no condom.... but as long as your spouse knows about it there is no problem as far as your employment status...

          Blackmail only works on people with something to hide.

        • by phorm ( 591458 )
          This doesn't seem quite right to me though. If you're being offered a good wage, why would you take a bribe? And if you've got good credit and are doing financially well, it probably stands to reason that you would expect a good wage or not go for the job

          In cases of embezzling, etc in corporate environments, how often is it the indebted indivual vs the greedy one? Look at big companies like Enron... once you've hit a certain bar - you have lots of money but for some reason can't get enough.

          So yeah, perh
      • Employees with low credit are usually more willing to sell company secrets for cash. It's a simple fact, demonstrated over and over again. Not because they're inherently evil employees or some other kneejerk reaction, but because the situations that got them a low credit score are precisely the ones that create a desperate need for lots of cash.

        Now combine that situation with a government clearance, and you've moved from selling company confedential data to their competitors, into selling military secr

      • Maybe you could borrow some money of some unregistered thug on the street, say against 25% a year (or break your bones). Then you could pay of your debts with the money and apply for a security clearance. With the money you earn you can repay your dept to the thug. If you get in a tight spot, you can always sell some security related information.

        Uh oh, there goes my clearance.
    • Re:Come to DC! (Score:4, Informative)

      by pragma_x ( 644215 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @04:49PM (#10770049) Journal
      I've been off the market in DC for 2 years now.
      Not to cry foul with your comment, but last I checked, employers wanted you to already have said clearance. Is this still the case?
  • Silicon Valley (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rackhamh ( 217889 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:04PM (#10768814)
    Here in Silicon Valley, the SJ Mercury News recently put out a report on the "improving economy", as measured by the declining unemployment rate.

    In other news, the unemployment rate in this area is declining because IT workers have given up trying to find work, and are leaving Santa Clara County in droves.

    Thereby reinforcing the finding that 90% of statistics are worthless.
  • I thought for sure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by marktaw.com ( 816752 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:04PM (#10768816) Homepage
    I thought for sure this would be an article about IT workers moving to Canada where they're actually hiring people [bloomberg.com]
  • ...with a nice sharp scalpel.

    Seriously though, is it really news that it's harder and harder to find, and keep, jobs in IT? Unless you speak Romanian or Hindi, that is.
  • by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:06PM (#10768833) Homepage
    ...I'm planning to migrate to Canada. I hear access to the internets is faster there.
  • Give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jimbobborg ( 128330 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:07PM (#10768844)
    Having read the article in the Post, the guy the story is about is an ex-mechanic who got into IT during the boom. He live in the Midwest (not exactly a hotbed of IT jobs). A perfect analogy would be someone looking for water in the desert. He isn't moving to one of the coasts, so he's kind of stuck. Living in the DC area, there are loads of jobs, but you have to get here. He'd be better off signing up with one of the big contracting firms (EDS, SAIC, etc.) if he's looking.

  • by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:09PM (#10768864)
    I hate the Information Technology label. If anybody asks me if I'm an IT worker I say "no". Even data entry jobs are IT. I wouldn't even call myself a programmer, though I write code. People who do hiring know the difference between the types of people that get lumped into the IT category, so why can't the trade rags, marketing departments, and mainstream media figure it out?

    And for the record, even though IT jobs are down, software engineering jobs are up. Especially in the Operating systems and Device Driver areas. If they didn't lump unskilled workers and skilled workers together in the same category they'd be able to tell the difference.
  • by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:09PM (#10768869) Journal
    Really, there's no demand for people who know how to use a computer. Everyone knows how to use a computer.

    I'm tired of reading "poor me! I used to make 100,000 a year because I knew Lotus 1-2-3, and now the only work I can get is data entry for minimum wage" stories.

    We all know how it works. The IT industry is rife with deskilling. What is today a marketable skill (I don't know, configuring LANs by hand, for instance) is tomorrow a useless one (autosensing switches and DHCP, etc). New technologies are constantly being created to replace IT workers.

    So if you want to stay with the computers, you have to constantly acquire new skills to stay a step ahead. People who think they can just sit back and live the fat life and let their A+ certification take care of them are dead wrong and deserve what they get.
  • A faulty baseline (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WateryGrave ( 809995 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:09PM (#10768871)
    The late 90's were an aberration that drew many unqualified people into IT. Think paper MCSEs and IT managers that could barely send email. What we are seeing is a deabsorption of these people (e.g. many of them out of work). Watch the allied health (medium skilled) fields do the same thing in a few years.
  • by Albanach ( 527650 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:11PM (#10768890) Homepage
    Perhaps the downturn in jobs is a consequence of the downturn in IT innovation? Where are the big leaps that in the last two decades have given increasing numbers of people job security? There hasn't been a leap like the wholesale move to GUIs in the early 90s, or the rise and rise of the internet at the end of the 90s and start of this century. Applications have stopped making revolutionary leaps and are today slowly maturing. For those who choose to run Windows, many of us are still running Win2k, a 4 year old OS because it works. I doubt any of us would have chosen to upgrade from Office 2k to office XP, because office 2k does everything we need.

    Unless we see something new, IT jobs are going the way of plumbers. Every town will have a few and if a company needs IT support they'll call one out. The rest of the time their computers will just work.

    • Perhaps the downturn in jobs is a consequence of the downturn in IT innovation?

      Or it is the real Y2K bug. Remember the late 90's had lots and lots of companies feverishly attempting to fix old codebases and hardware. Equipment and software was upgraded ahead of the normal schedule (helping to lead to the boom times). Alongside of this, the internet started becoming commercially applied.

      After Y2K passed uneventfully, and after the internet bubble burst, all of these companies were running hardware a

    • Unless we see something new, IT jobs are going the way of plumbers.

      I don't think that is a good comparison. I true, honest trades-person is rare and invaluable.

    • ***NOTE I AM TALKING ABOUT THE COMMON HOME AND SMALL BUISNESS USER***

      There has been inovation that has been going at near the same rate. Issues like GUI wern't a leap just an evalutional change. First you had command Line, then went to hotkey (Like Word Perfect). Then Menu Driven (Much like Novel or Turbo language). Then the menu allowed split screens and mouse support like Deskview then they started using serious GUI that allowed the windows to be moved more detailed. (Also the Mac has been using GUI s
  • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:12PM (#10768903)
    That is the problem people look at people using computers they go IT. It was the same durring the late 90s tech boom they sell products on the internet then they are a tech company (I am sorry Pets.com was not a Tech company it was a Pet suply store that happends to be online) To put Pets.com as the same type of company as say Sun Micrososystems is just plane stupid. Now That the echonmy dropped they are still saying that all of them are IT staff. So to say that IT is down then the real question where is it down? Is it in the application Programmers, The Web Developers, IT Technical Support, System Administrators, Network Consultants, ..., ..., ... There are tons of jobs that fall under IT which require different disiplins and skills. Most Colleges have seemed to realize these differences thus make a difference between Computer Science, Computer Engineering, MIS, Information Technology Systems, ..., ..., ... But the general public doesn't seem t want to make the seporation in their mind. Sure we use computers for more then wordprocessing and spreadsheet, But after that the simularites get far more seporated. Saying IT jobs are being loss at the nation average is like saying, Office jobs are being loss above the national average. While only a couple of office jobs have been dropped.
  • had NO business being in IT in the first place!

    They knew what the interweb was and could spell HTML yet, somehow, commanded over 50k a year.

    I was glad to see the "people rake" come through and get rid of some of the dead weight.
    • Yes, in the *late 90s*.

      The boom has been over for quite awhile, and there have been plenty of stories right here on slashdot (as well as many other information sources) showing job trends for "IT" and "Software Engineers" have generally been pretty dismal over intervals as recent as Jan-June 2004.

      It's my *assumption* that the vast majority of people who were drawn into the tech boom and weren't particularly qualified have been out of the industry since, at most, late 2002. Crazy internet petfood sell
  • by NardofDoom ( 821951 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:13PM (#10768916)
    They're relaxing immigration requirements to deal with it. Knowing is half the battle. [nbr.co.nz]

    Of course, you have to deal with a complete lack of anything resembling broadband, which is probably why they have the shortage in the first place; no techie wants to move somewhere 256kbps is considered broadband and worth paying $50/month for.

  • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:13PM (#10768919) Journal
    for the first time in 30 years the IT unemployment rate exceeded the national average unemployment rate

    And pro-work-visa lobbyists, such as ITAA [itaa.org], still claim there is a "shortage" of IT people.
  • by Le Marteau ( 206396 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:14PM (#10768925) Journal
    Man, was that story depressing. Guy has a family and kids. If you don't feel compassion for that guy's story, you're not human.

    Personally, I think the country is going to hell in the proverbial handbasket, which is one of the reasons I choose not to procreate. If life got intolerable enough, I can always say "Screw you guys" and check out. I have lived a good life and have absolutly no fear of any after life.

    But with a family, well, you just can't check out while your children still depend on you.

    I know, I know, that's the way it's always been. But for me, particularly in this society, it still gives me strength to know that if life gives me the old "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" trip I can always say "Fuck that shit" and make the Big Trip.

    So, for those of you who don't have kids, please, don't do it. Contrary to popular opinion, procreation is one of the most selfish things one can do.

    Think of the future. Globalization. That means a leveling of resource use and wages, and let me tell you something: yours are going to go down more than Habibi's in the Middle East is going to go up. The powers-that-be have mastered the art of groupthink and know how to sway popular opinion that the power will only get more oppressive.
    • by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:27PM (#10769074)
      Holy shit, that's one of the darkest posts I've ever read.

      I hope thinking like yours doesn't become a trend. We need optimism and ambition, not this pessimistic crap. Life is what you make of it, and there are always more opportunities than there are people. Within reason, what you want is almost always within your reach if you're willing to work hard enough. If we go to hell in a handbasket it's going to be because people who think like you will take us there. Fortunatly I think you're in the vast minority and could probably do with some anti-depressants.
      • by phorm ( 591458 )
        I think the same way, though not in the sense that I'm avoiding commitments because I might decide to eat lead one day. While you're young, starting a family can be locationally limiting. At the moment I have no marital committments, if a great job comes up halfway across the globe I can take it. If I bank enough days off and cash I can take a holiday

        Too many people have this vision of the future with a beautiful wife and perfect kids, a leave-it-to-beaver life that greets you when you get home from work
    • My wife and I bought our first home 6 months ago and did the math: with 3.5 years left on our student loans, either we can keep the house and play catch-up on planning for retirement or we can have kids and give it up. Her biological clock is ticking since we're both about 32. It's kids or our only shot at financial security (take a look at how much it costs to raise children). We don't have relatives to hand us piles of cash, or free childcare, or a place to live durring the early years. We've had to
    • Dude, for over 11 years I thought I was alone in this mode of thinking.

      Procreating is selfish. It used to be more obvious though, when the kids had to work on the farm to support old parents, today it is not necessarily as obvious, but it is still true - people are afraid to be alone when they are older, so they have kids.

      Personally, for over a decade now I have been thinking on this subject. Quite a few things you ended with in your head, like for example that I never wanted to be born. Too bad it was
  • by KrackHouse ( 628313 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:15PM (#10768937) Homepage
    I work with people in career transition. A lot of them go to technical schools because they hear ads claiming that they'll double their salary. Most of them graduate making $9.00 and hour doing tech support phone work and $10 -$20K of debt. I work in the IT field but have a business degree so I have some level of security but it bothers me that these students receive little or no business training. You'd think that with all of the automation now taking place and the commoditization of computer hardware the schools would be responsible enough to explain that computers aren't a panacea.
  • by prisoner ( 133137 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:16PM (#10768955)
    and while I don't know much about the economy overall I can say this much: it seems like the older It guys who survived the .com implosion are kinda burning out and looking towards different types of IT employment. Many are willing to give up high-paying (and/or high-pressure) jobs miles away in the city in order to be near home and, in many cases, a new child or wife. I know it's not unique to our field but I do believe that most IT people tend to think a bit differently about this and come to the decision that money isn't the be-all. I recently put a listing in the local paper for a desktop support guy, $10-$20/hour. I got an amazing number of responses from people who were *already employed* making way more money than I was offering and were clearly over qualified. Number one reason was to be closer to home. Number two was traffic.

    At first I chalked it up to people who were lying about already being employed but after talking to them on the phone I'm not so sure. I'm near Washington and our IT scene isn't as bleak as other places so this may be a local trend.
    • by Jhon ( 241832 ) * on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:42PM (#10769230) Homepage Journal
      I make decent money. Not great, but comfortable and enough to keep a roof over my family, put money in a retirement fund, private school for the kids, a "saftey net" savings account and we're getting ready to buy our first home. And this is in LA County with a high cost of living and the AVERAGE house runs about .5 mil.

      I have been offered literally triple my salery if I were willing to move/commute over an hour away -- or move to another state all together.

      I've turned them down. I've turned them all down. Why? Because I live in an "ok" area. I live about a 20 min WALK from work. My hours are of my own choosing (mostly) and I enjoy a huge amount of freedom with my employer.

      I actually get to help RAISE my kids -- not just let my wife or some hired 'day care' raise them. Our children have never seen a 'baby sitter' other than grandma. They've never been picked up from school by anyone other than my wife or myself. You cant pay me enough to give that up.
      • I actually get to help RAISE my kids -- not just let my wife or some hired 'day care' raise them. Our children have never seen a 'baby sitter' other than grandma. They've never been picked up from school by anyone other than my wife or myself. You cant pay me enough to give that up.

        Smartest thing I have ever read on Slashdot. Other young fathers should heed what this guy is saying. When you're sitting on your deathbed, you won't regret making $50k instead of $100k in 2004, but you will regret it if yo

  • Another story (Score:3, Interesting)

    by COredneck ( 598733 ) * on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:23PM (#10769035)
    This happened to a good friend of mine. Back in the Summer of 2002 when the Dot Com boom was just about busted, a friend of mine lost his job and ended up taking contracting gigs. He lived here in Colorado Springs and ended up doing gigs in Ft. Collins (2 hr drive) and in the Denver Tech Center (1 hr drive). Having a mortgage, wife and child, it was a lot for him. In November 2002, he ended up taking a job in Salinas area of California, not too far from the bay Area and its high cost of living. The house got sold, no equity left from it. He always talks about wanting to come back to Colorado but like most palces, the high tech job market is in the shitter. He had a clearance but it was already the past the 2 year mark of where it was easy to reinstate or resubmit paperwork.

    Today, he is living near Santa Cruz in a small 1000 square foot house costing $2500 per month. He has two kids and pulling in $40k per year. He cannot even buy a house since even the junky houses are a half-million -> high mortgage payment.

    With his situation, more than likely, if I lose my job here, I would have to move and leave Colorado even with the upside of have very little debt - car payment only and house is paid off. Washington DC is doing good but cost of living is awful.
  • by Wicked187 ( 529065 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:24PM (#10769042) Homepage
    I do not see a shortage in IT jobs... I see a shortage in qualified IT workers. I would say a large percentage of the unemployed IT workforce are inexperienced and lack some major backing (like a college degree, certification, job experience/internship). I hear from so many people who obvious do not know anything about IT about how this certification sucks because they got it and they cannot find a job, or how they spent a year in an overpriced tech class that was supposed to turn them into an expert. It doesn't help when the unemployment office gives extra money to laid off airline workers if they take some IT classes. The biggest answer to unemployment problems "Hell, send 'em to some IT training, anyone can do it."

    Oh well, I have a good job now, and I got it because all of the idiots out there made me look so much better. Hell, the guy that I interviewed with left because he didn't know what he was doing, and now I do his job and mine. Maybe if there were more qualified people, I would have a new coworker... because we are looking, we just cannot find anyone who is competent.

    • by owlstead ( 636356 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @06:16PM (#10771063)
      Our company was looking for an application programmer/maintainer. One of the less interesting jobs in my opinion. We've got some new blood now, but it took a very long time and 300+ applications (job applications that is :) to get to the right person if I'm not mistaken.

      The problem with the high unemployment rate is that _anyone_ will react on any job offer. It takes a lot of time for a company to sift through all this reactions and seperate the good few from the abundant bad.

      A hint; don't go doing nothing but take a low income job and study and look for a job in the mean time. Companies don't trust long periods between jobs as I found out the soft way (I was hired just before it all came tumbling down, lucky me, but they didn't like it).
  • by randall_burns ( 108052 ) <randall_burnsNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:24PM (#10769043)
    The official policy of the Bush administration is to give foreigners willing/able to displace American workers a shot at citizenship/permanent residency. Just look at the platform-the Republicans want to expand use of H-1b/L-1 visas to match "any willing worker" with "any willing employer".

    This is all really a massive program of corporate welfare. Corporations pay _nothing_ for these immigration rights that have considerable economic value.

    The hypocrites in the left don't care because they expect immigrants to vote democratic in time. The hypocrites on the right are being bought with promises of federal funds for faith based charities and educational vouchers.
  • Bush-ism (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Capt_Troy ( 60831 ) <tfandango@yahoBOHRo.com minus physicist> on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:25PM (#10769055) Homepage Journal
    "That's why I'm such a big fan of Community College!"

    Woo-Hoo, that guy should just go to community college, then he'll be able to find another great job. Isn't it so great when everything is so black and white?
  • by shubert1966 ( 739403 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:27PM (#10769071) Journal
    The guy's making good money, it's his expenses that are killing him. Having to move frquently and accepting a motel as a home is a judgement call and it's blowing 1800 a month.

    He should have his 9 year old set up a bank account so he can avoid the check-cashing fee.

    If his wife can work they ought to just move back to Warren and he can commute to Akron, Kent, Canton or the Cleveland area. A three bedroom rental at $1000 and suddenly he's saving $700 / month.

    The whole economy is too darwinian, future generations can't defend themselves if they haven't been born yet, and today's financial institutions just do whatever Washington will let them get away with. Shareholders VS society at-large. Temporal mindsets suck.

    This guy should be happy he's got a wife and kids. Try PLC or truck driving or become an RN. There 'Service Economy' is inescapable - so he should be happy with what he's got. Sorry to be bitter, but I got my own problems, and $30 an hour aint one of 'em.

    'There is only so much room in the economy for business owners - leaving the rest of us destined to being someone else's Em-Ploy-Ee.'
    ~ Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber Manifesto

    • by VAXman ( 96870 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:49PM (#10769316)
      My thoughts exactly. You know, there's something like 10 million people living in this country, who risked their lives swimming across river or crawling through scorching desert to come here to earn $6/hour cleaning toilets, while having huge extended families, seem to live happily, and still have plenty of money to send to the relatives back in the homeland. Anybody who can't live off $30/hr - sheesh...
      • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @04:37PM (#10769895) Journal
        My thoughts exactly. You know, there's something like 10 million people living in this country, who risked their lives swimming across river or crawling through scorching desert to come here to earn $6/hour cleaning toilets, while having huge extended families, seem to live happily, and still have plenty of money to send to the relatives back in the homeland. Anybody who can't live off $30/hr - sheesh...

        Are you saying we should welcome this new 3rd-world life-style? (Please, no overlord puns.) I'll have my kids practice by walking to school barefoot in the snow. It will be the *reverse* of what we heard:

        "In my day my parents drove me to school in a big fat warm SUV. None of this newfangled barefoot stuff."
  • by cyngus ( 753668 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:28PM (#10769094)
    Something dawned on me yesterday. IT is one of the few, if not the only, industry ever created to put its own workers, and the workers of as many other industries as possible, out of a job. That is the purpose of information technology. Kind of sad and kind of neat. IT makes very few truly new products. We create products that do old things a different way (ie. streaming a video over a network, cable or otherwise, so you don't have to go to Blockbuster). So be it.
  • by finder ( 69621 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:28PM (#10769095)
    When I started uni, the IT market was hot and no one was having trouble getting work. In fact, I probably would have been better off getting a job right off the bat instead of dropping the price of a small island in the south pacific on going to school. I spent an entire year out of school looking for IT work...mostly focused in one city, but toward the end of my search I just wanted a job. I must have sent out hundreds of resumes and had a few interviews but nothing solid. The company I'm now working for called me out of no where...I believe they got my resume from Monster, although I hadn't updated that resume in years as I have a serious loathing of monster.com.

    I don't think we can blame the dot com bubble bursting on the serious lack of IT jobs in the country...outsourcing may be to blame, but that's typically helpdesk sort of work. Also, the guy that posted about DC having an array of IT jobs...believe it. Northern Virginia has a surplus of IT jobs most of the time...I grew up there and hopped around to a number of great positions even before school. I would've gone back if I didn't hate the area so much.

    Good luck with the job search to all you unemployed out there.
  • by palfreman ( 164768 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:31PM (#10769132) Homepage
    Lots of IT work in London [jobserve.com] at the moment. If anything there is a shortage. I certainly get a stream of responses for my cv (resume). Also there is a lot of money to be made in Dubai currently, especially in IT - like with Dubai Internet City" [dubaiinternetcity.com]. Zero tax, massive ecomonic growth, people from all over the world there, safe friendly environment for all westerners, and the best of everything - they are currently building the world's tallest building [bbc.co.uk] in Dubai too.
  • by lothar97 ( 768215 ) * <owen.smigelski@org> on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:32PM (#10769142) Homepage Journal
    I'm an attorney in San Diego, and often attend tech related networking events. I've noticed that over the past 2-3 years, the number of people at these events who identify themselves as "web designers" has been increasing.

    I'm not sure if they're getting work, but it seems that a lot of them are former programmers, PC techs, startup employees, graphic designers, teachers, construction workers, sanitation workers, pimps, etc. I keep wondering why so many people are leaving other careers to go to "web design."

    • Web design was easy and it made a lot of money. I've been seeing a lot of web designers who had no other qualifications be unemployed for YEARS, holding out for another job in the IT Industry that will never come. All the stuff they used to do has been automated. You might see some high ends sites employ real graphic designers or interface people, but none of the unemployed web designers I know don't have any formal education in either of those fields either.

      I'd suggest going into law. IT people come and

  • by xThinkx ( 680615 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:51PM (#10769353) Homepage

    The article talks about the "temporary IT job" this guy has in York, PA. Guess what, I've got one of those jobs too (also in York). I have no idea why that guy would move TO York to get an IT job, it's all crappy temp work. Chances are the guy is working for Harley Davidson, they're one of the only employers of IT people in York and they hire a lot of temporary people.

    Seriously, if this guy moved here for a job, I'm real scared, because I'm getting ready to move AWAY to get one.

  • by Animats ( 122034 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @03:58PM (#10769437) Homepage
    • They used to tell me
      I was building a dream.
      And so I followed the mob
      When there was earth to plow
      Or guns to bear
      I was always there
      Right on the job.
      They used to tell me
      I was building a dream
      With peace and glory ahead.
      Why should I be standing in line
      Just waiting for bread?
      Once I built a railroad
      I made it run
      Made it race against time.
      Once I built a railroad
      Now it's done
      Brother, can you spare a dime?
      Once I built a tower up to the sun
      Brick and rivet and lime.
      Once I built a tower,
      Now it's done.
      Brother, can you spare a dime?

    I warned you. [downside.com] On 2000-04-14, I wrote "Today begins the Second Great Depression". Was I wrong?

  • by YukiKotetsu ( 765119 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @04:05PM (#10769514)
    There's an ITT Tech on every corner, DeVry spewing ads all over the place, and tons of other companies/schools still trying to convince you that you should get a degree in technology just because you can program your VCR. The problem is that nearly anyone can get a college degree. Getting a job, showing some sort of drive, knowledge, and dedication is another problem. I graduated on October 28, 2003 from DeVry. Everyone told me things would be fine, etc. I realized when I saw class mates graduating with me who had 3.0 averages and did not even know how to program anything, much less how to even create a web page... things would be sad. These same people would be arriving in troves to try and get a job, throwing bull in the interview. You know what? It took me two months, but I got a job as a software consultant. Also, in those two months, I had 30+ interviews. When I'd ask my classmates how many interviews they had, they would tell me none. None. Why? I spent 40+ hours a week looking for work, took it very serious. I showcased my talents, learned new things, and worked hard. These people sit at home looking for work on Monster.com and expecting someone to just throw money at them. Two of my classmates I keep in touch with both work $8.00 an hour jobs, doing nothing related to their degree. I am quite pleased with this because both of these people had no idea how to do anything, just used others for help, never learned anything technical besides how to memorize answers before a test. Unemployment rate high in IT? Good. They deserve it. If you are good at what you do and you get fired, you should be able to get a job. If you can't, you are not trying hard enough. I view this all with the quality and quantity of the IT workforce - low quality and high quantity. It's just trimming the fat. Oh yes, within six months of being a consultant I got a senior analyst/admin position with a major insurance firm. So there's a second job even.
  • by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @04:19PM (#10769700) Homepage Journal
    And start to do what is practically useful to support your lifestyle. If you are a code crunching monkey or a sysadmin you are either out of work or will soon be out of work or severely overworked. That is an inescable fact just as if this was 1903 and you were the world's best wagon wheel maker. Don't forget that the word

    Saboteur

    comes from the weaving EXPERT craftsmen who threw their shoes (Sabot) into the Jaquard powerlooms to break them because automation put them out of work. These were the best in their field.

    And just like them it really doesn't matter how impressive your skills are if they are impractical or inefficient or not in any meaningful economic demand.

    What the un/underemployed need to do is figure out what new set of tasks they can do or learn to do that will allow them to live more or less the way they are accustomed. Imagine if instead of an IT jock you were a farmer or a UAW line worker. Would you wander around looking for the tiny handful of farming jobs or auto assembly line jobs that were still around?

    Today in IT there are a few categories that are hiring. This includes security, privacy, IT audit, business controls and corporate compliance, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA. These are the jobs that still need sharp people in an advisory role frequently in an interpersonal setting. And any job that requires a physical presence will never be outsourced.
  • by spun ( 1352 ) <loverevolutionary@@@yahoo...com> on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @05:09PM (#10770286) Journal
    It contradicts my belief that I got where I am through skill and hard work. If you are not successful, it must be because you lack skill or do not work hard. If people who have skill and work hard can still fail, then perhaps I was just lucky, or priveleged in ways that others were not. Perhaps my belief that the system rewards eveyone who works hard is incorrect. That conflicts with my sense of fairness and justice, creating uncomfortable cognitive dissonance, so shut up already! I have decided that everyone who does not succeed deserves to fail, the system works, and everything is fair and just. Quit whining, you failures! Lalalalala, I can't hear you...

  • Duhh... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doctor_D ( 6980 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @05:18PM (#10770421) Homepage Journal
    Gee, this is news? Yeah, I know all about the IT job losses this 3rd Q of 04...especially as I was laid off from my old job. I wound up getting a similar job--in West Virginia. Nevermind I was working in Michigan.

    But then it doesn't help that the IT field has attracted so many idiots. At a previous job I was interviewing for a Jr. UNIX Admin, and we had a guy in for a second interview and my boss loved him. I was there for a tech interview--found out this guy knew nothing--yet demanded a large salary--just cause he somehow managed to get a Master's in CS. I even quized him on some basic things, and all I usually got in response was a blank stare. *sigh*
  • by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2004 @05:28PM (#10770530) Homepage
    Honestly, you can't count on a career in technology anymore, no matter what your skill level.

    We paid off all our credit cards and are about to payoff the last car loan we ever plan on having. I wouldn't have a car loan now if they paid me interest. We save cash every month and pay extra on our mortgage. We do it by not living extravegantly, shopping at discount stores, and not going out all the time. It's not easy, but just something like packing your lunch can save a bunch of money every month. Many of my co-workers eat out every day, that's between seven and ten dollars a day.

    On top of that I have a non-tech back up career I work part-time. Living off of it full time wouldn't be fun but we wouldn't lose the house.

    Lot of young people are killing themselves with credit cards. And now days being late on one can raise interest and fees on all the others. It's insane. Credit card companies are modern day robber barons. Cut them up, pay them off and close those accounts! That way you're not tempted.

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