Lost Your Job Yet?

Computerworld ^ | April 12, 2004 | John Pardon

[CasearianDaoist]

ping

[clamper1797]

BTT

[xrp]

Doom and gloom talk. Most of my customers who I visit and sell to in the Midwest are increasing IT staff. Now, a lot of the low-level/helpdesk jobs that involve basic troubleshooting are outsourced to India, but much of the network administration, server support (hardware especially), information security, deployments, etc has to be done in the USA and is not outsourced.

[2banana]

I know it is not a scientific study, but my friends in IT are busier than ever right now. They say they would have no problem finding another job if they had to...

[Mr. Jeeves]

Companies don't see IT as an essential component of their business, they see it as a service, like the landscaping or plumbing that they contract out. They don't see a software engineer emptying bedpans as a waste of human capital - they just don't believe that the expensive work he was doing made enough improvement in the profitability of their business to justify keeping him on staff as a permanent employee.

By and large, IT has failed to convince American corporate management that it is anything but an expensive, hard to manage luxury.

[stylin_geek]

I'm currently overworked and very much underpaid, but adding significantly to my resume. I've become completely mercenary in my outlook, and will sell my services to the hightest bidder. At least, that is my plan until I land a job with a company I care to stay with. I might add, I'm contacted by head hunters on a fairly regular basis.

[expatpat]

I suspect that people like Pardon would be better off taking the view that the grunge jobs can go to India, while upgrading their activity to things like software specification, software design, project management that still need to be done here and are more creative activities than programming.

[xrp]

my friends in IT are busier than ever right now.

IT infrastructure has a lifespan of between 3 and 5 years. So all that equipment that companies bought EN MASSE for y2k is at its functional end. The recession and stagnant market are a result of companies squeezing every bit of value out of those systems.

We're now at the maximum end of that 3-5 year lifecycle so companies have to replace, expand and upgrade now. That takes people resources.

[RolandBurnam]

I agree. I am in IT for almost 15 years, and an outsourced software project would have to go flawlessly to not crash and burn, trying to get bugs fixed and software revised from across the globe would be a huge headache. That said, I can see outsourcing call centers or support. We aren't assigned our jobs by the local party official, if you aren't good enough at something, choose something else and try it. I have thought about going to india myself and trying to start a company. If the trend is as hot as the media says, it would be a cinch. hmmm

[TXBSAFH]

I have been outsourced twice in the last three years. It has been dang hard sledding.

[tdadams]

I also don't think IT is a dead end. It has been and will continue to be a career field with lots of opportunity for Americans. However, anyone who gambles that they will always have a high-paying job is foolish.

If you live like you make $30,000 a year, it won't kill you if you all of a sudden lose your $70,000 a year job and have to take a job paying half of that.

[Poohbah]

By and large, IT has failed to convince American corporate management that it is anything but an expensive, hard to manage luxury.

It professionals need to learn how to measure their impact on the company's bottom line. Right now, they can't give any sort of metric (either in cost avoidance or productivity gain) to the bean-counters.

[Ciexyz]

Reading all posts with interest.

[Hatteras]

I've been laid off twice in the last three years. I'm changing careers. I decided I want to be a bartender when I grow up.

[NonValueAdded]

you and me ping

[TXBSAFH]

I just got finised changing careers in 2001. What is the norm now chage every 5 years?

[xrp]

It professionals need to learn how to measure their impact on the company's bottom line. Right now, they can't give any sort of metric (either in cost avoidance or productivity gain) to the bean-counters.

Which is amazing, considering how many people in companies today use IT resources. RoI is simple for an IT pro to justify when he/she properly cites how important it is to have systems up 99.999% (the sacred "5 9s") of the time. A 1 day outage of a network because of an attack, power outage, system outage, router going down, whatever, can cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars when you factor in:

Delayed customer transactions
E-Commerce
Employee data entry and productivity (Essentially your employees come to work for a day, but can't work for a day. You pay them for sitting there).

Personally, I find it amazing that companies dump so much funding into new unimportant IT hardware (say those pretty $600+ 19" flatscreen monitors, when 19" CRT monitors @ $250 would do the same function for employees) and not the personnel to support the hardware/software and people.

[Light Speed]

I watch Lou Dobbs daily.....his efforts to teach America what is occuring, ranges from Highly credible too moral enlightenment.

Lately Lou has had *Big Giant Heads..[Pun on 3RD Rock from the Sun]..
so ya..BGHD's explaining that Lou and the rest of America are infact..ignorant of reality and benefit of outsourcing.
The spin is unique..the trump card laid down forwards that in one month..the Bush Admin created more jobs than all lost previously to outsourcing.

Of course..Lou contested that..but BGHD's just smirked confidently : )

All is spin..
From Gas prices..State Taxes to outsourcing.

Like a Lawyer firm that blitzes the other with paper....
The Gov overwhelms you with stats,
In the end...you are confused and moving in a new time window of promise,..

Business Fatwa's..issued by the Money Mosque.

Take your shoe's off.....you are on Holy ground : )

[MrB]

My IT consulting company manager told me that they've had more resignations in the last week than they ever have -

people are moving into better, more permanent positions.