An eye tee:
Posted on 09/18/2003 4:03:48 PM PDT by Mini-14
About 150,000 IT positions were lost in 2001 and 2002
SEPTEMBER 17, 2003
The study, which was presented at a congressional forum today by the Washington-based nonprofit group Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST), affirms what IT managers have seen in response to help-wanted ads. "I'm sure the number is 6% or higher," said Michael Russo, a data center manager at Wyeth, a Madison, N.J.-based pharmaceuticals giant.
A recent third-shift job in the company's operational data center drew 168 applicants. "There are a lot of people who are out of work," Russo said.
Randy Rosenthal, manager of computer operations at Southwest Securities Group Inc. in Dallas, has seen the same trend: highly qualified people with multiple degrees applying for jobs IT managers once had trouble filling. "That tells me that 6% has hit the IT area pretty hard," he said.
About 150,000 IT positions were lost in 2001 and 2002, about two-thirds of them in programming, the report said.
Two years ago, Phoenix-based water and electric utility Salt River Project had an open position for an operations analyst and received about 15 applications; last year, it posted a similar position and had 50 applicants. This year the 800,000-customer utility has a hiring freeze, said operations manager Dewayne Nelsen.
There was a sense of grim resignation about the latest report among some IT managers at a conference held here by AFCOM, an Orange, Calif.-based data center managers user group.
Several IT managers, some requesting that their names not be used, told of data center consolidations that led to layoffs or offshore plans. For the future, automation improvements and the development of "self-healing" applications will also hurt some IT career paths. The career advice from one IT manager was to avoid the technical aspects of the profession and focus more on IT management training.
IT unemployment rates were as low as 1.2% in 1997, shooting up to 4.3% in 2002.
But the overall number of IT jobs has seen remarkable growth, tripling in the past 20 years, according to the CPST, which conducts labor force and educational research for a range of scientific organizations and companies. The IT labor force grew from 719,000 jobs in 1983 to 2.5 million at its peak in 2000.
With the growth of IT came an increasing reliance upon foreign workers. This increase was facilitated by legislation expanding the use of H-1B visas, which allow skilled foreign workers to take jobs in the U.S. for up to six years. A cap of 195,000 on the number of visas that can be issued has been in place for each of the past three years, but the cap will drop to 65,000 on Oct. 1. L-1 visas, which allow companies to transfer foreign employees into the U.S., have tripled in use.
The report, sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York and the United Engineering Foundation, an umbrella organization for engineering groups, draws no firm conclusion on the offshore outsourcing trend. But it recognizes predictions made by analyst firms, including Gartner Inc., which in July estimated that 10% of all U.S. professional jobs in IT services companies would be transferred overseas, along with 5% of IT positions in other businesses.
Long term, the report says more research is needed on the effects of offshore outsourcing and the workforce issues raised by it: "Can the U.S. continue to be a prime market for the rest of the world if it is a stronghold for neither manufacturing nor technical services?" the report asks. "What are the long-run implications of these trends for American standards of living?"
The CPST report concludes that while the job market for IT professionals has weakened, it remains sizable.
"For the near run, normal turnover alone will generate opportunities for people who are determined to work in the field," the report said. "The long-run outlook is more problematic. The United States does not lack, either now or in the foreseeable future, sufficient numbers of capable people who would like to work in IT. But those people may not be willing to conclude that long-run demands for their services will be good enough to support IT as a sensible career choice."
During the Bubble Economy, which was not a sustainable enviorenment, unemployment rates went lower.
Because everything about computers was new and growing, unemployement levels were lower than in an established profession.
Computers are no longer "new" and the bubble has burst. 6% or 7% unemployment is relatively low and normal.
Get used to it.
So9
That's a confusing statement. I am foreign born, but I am a citizen. Am I included in that statistic?
Two or three years ago there was a huge number of 1996 1997 era machines on the used market. Finding used machines from 1999 & 2000 is a lot harder. Companies are keeping them longer and using the same software. Old software that the employees know running on older reliable hardware requires far less support.
Large categories of software including database and accounting software does not need to be updated.
Companies are going to buy new machines and software when it makes business sense. Just like they buy desks, office furniture, and air conditioners... they are going to do it when they need the stuff.
They are also discovering they don't need nearly as many people as they thought they did.
Being in I.T. today is like being in the TV repair busness in the 1950's. Get out!!! The industry is going to die from lack of need.
An eye tee:
I could go on and on with all the different things I can do in the IT world. Too many people are specialist. "Well I can only write Progress Code on a Unix box" is a bad attitude.
f*ckedcompnay.com chronicled the demise of the dot.nothings as it was happening. Fooseball, Aeron chairs, free spring water, and 100-hour weeks to run a website; Something that many bright 14-year-olds do as a hobby.
The first thing that would happen when the hapless investors dumped money on a startup was that everyone hired someone to do their job. They in turn did likewise.
When Netscape started things with their IPO, I used to argue, "OK, they have a product they give away free, have no sales and no business plan. How are they possibly worth $150 million?"
Yes, I missed the opportunity to treble my money based on what amounted to an Albanian Pyramid Scam, and also missed the opportunity of losing it all.
There are still good IT Jobs. Heavens knows, the ones I still see working at my place cannot possibly be an example! There MUST be lots of good ones out there who would be grateful for a stable real job. Maybe the company does not want to pay anything for an "Overhead" department, but for whatever reason, I am confident that surely there are many IT jobs around if we could ever get the embedded bad ones to just go home.
I do know people from some of these startups. One I know left a Fortune 500 to get a piece of the action. It did not last long, and was based on a stupid idea, and briefly flourished because there were a few really stupid investors left.
So in all honesty, when we hear of the loss of all the IT jobs, many were not real jobs to begin with. The recent grads they hired, including a few friends and relatives of mine, had not the faintest idea what a workday was in the first place, and simply knew no better. Of COURSE they worked nights, weekends and holidays. Of COURSE the Nice Company, to lighten their burden, installed pool and ping pong tables in recognition of the fact that the kids were giving up their lives and marriages.
The whole era was a shameful episode.
We are just turning the dime on information technology. There is much more out there than Microsoft's quarterly releases - that's a marketing plan. Digital convergence is happening everywhere - I really don't see it stopping.
However, there is a case to be made that technology as a competitive advantage is no longer. For example - having the latest release of a software product or even having a website (online purchasing) does not give one an edge on his/her competition.
The bigger issue is with the reduction of manufacturing in America, what are we left with? We hear alot about a "service-oriented" market, but I'm not convinced. Even help desk and call center services are being outsourced to India, Ireland, Mexico, etc. Just my .02
No. But it wasn't Clinton's either.
Right. Just get out the old crystal ball 25 years ago.
You're gloating is quite annoying.
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