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Tech Jobs Projected to Double by 2010
netbsd_fan writes "Today's Chicago Tribune has an article that claims that the number of coding jobs will double by 2010, and computer support jobs aren't far behind. It's hard to believe since I just laid off our last two Win32 guys Friday. Could this be a turning point in the labor market?"
That would be great. In the meantime, I'd be happy to see tech jobs return to their former level, let alone double.
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
I think I shall change my job in that case ;]
They may have a point. But computer users are becomming smarter and smarter.
Back in the day people charged out heaps just to plug a computer in or reinstall it. Nowdays everyones a computer technition and can do it themselves.
Surely they will just invent some AI version of software with a nice point anc click interface (more so than there is now) that creates all the software you need!
/sig
Not that I have a problem with that...
because of this prediction more people will go into computer related fields, and thus the job market will again "suck".
For The Best Jazz/Hip-hop fusion > COlD DUCK
Despite the current situation, I don't think anyone could realistically predict a long-term deterioration in the tech industry. Regardless of the whether your Nortel stock is doing well or not, technology is just too important to today's economy, underlying business activity in nearly every sector. If it can drive down cost, or provide a competitive advantage, it will be valuable longterm. I'm sure that I'm preaching to the choir here, but technology isn't going away...
Further, as worker productivity increases in the longer term, while natural resources become scarce, it seems clear that an increasing proportion of our output will have to consist of services and 'intangible' (e.g., information) products.
Either that, or we'll all be unemployed and starving...
Sure, I hope there are more tech jobs in the future, but does anyone still trust these 'economists?'
Shouldn't they have predicted the initial tech fallout? Almost none did. In fact, when have they ever been right?
Maybe I'm just too cynical, but I'll believe this one whan I see it.
I'm sorry but soon programmer will be what teenage kids do, like mc donalds of today.
Yeah, just like when literacy rates go up and everybody starts writing good novels . . .
That's my opinion of course. Any experts around? Can anybody point at an article written 7 years ago that predicts the end of the bubble?
My $0.02
The traditional approach of in-house techs for companies doesn't work in a large company becasue the numbers people want to mess with the formula. They see the potential for consolidation which reduces the number of peope needed to support your network. Then they see cheaper programmers available in India or China or any one of several countries with decent education and low pay. So they export those jobs.
Eventually, they see a few ex-techies managing the people who used to be hot stuff making too much money to repeat decisions made by the senior management, and replace those with accounting types.
Remember in most companies it is the overriding goal of Finance to reduce costs. The other parts of the business bring in the profits. One way to reduce costs is to standardize jobs so they can be filled by less talented people with lower earnings.
There will always be a tech industry, but I'm not so sure with outsourcing and globalization that there will be a large American tech industry. The trained monkey jobs may be the last few left.
And so you know who's talking, I'm a VP of IT who worked his way up from general geek over the last 18 years. I've seen the trends play out and I just don't feel good about the future of our industry.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
...will be in India, or wherever anybody is willing to code for $1/day.
Now they're projecting a big turn-around in the labor market 7 years from now. Next they'll start wailing about a severe shortage of labor.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
My guess is that, as tech workers are willing to settle for significantly reduced salary and benefits, the number of tech jobs will start climbing again. So the article is probably right in its assertion that the number of tech jobs will increase.
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I did get one offer for sum that is laughable.
Do you know what is a laughable sum? $0.00. Anything else in a time of job shortage is good. Just because you can't get a job being lord high muck doesn't mean you can't move out into other areas, and man if you're on your last bagel you will do anything.
I have done everything from stuffing envelopes to deliviring junk mail(yes I was a snail mail spammer), from working in Pizza Hut to being the only development guy in my organisation. One thing I have learnt is do not be too fucking proud to accept the shit jobs. They may be shit but at least they pay more than sitting on your arse waiting for the magical call from the recruitment agency.
This is the attitude that really pisses me off...
.coms were a joke that DESERVED to go under. The vast majority had no real business plan and were headed up by know-nothing kids with a get-rich-quick mentality. There is not a 22 year old out there that should have a title "C*O" or "Senior anything"
The fact is that most of the
On top of that, people who have no inate love of technology dumped their old jobs, tooka 6 month course and called themselves developers so they could get rich quickly. These people never belonged in high tech to begin with. The fact that they are now abandoning tech (largely for law according to some reports) is a GOOD thing. Get rid of the deadwood and leave the real coding to the REAL developers.
Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.
html ENGINEERS!
oh my fucking _GOD_!!!!
html *ENGINEERS*!
is this the end?
Uhm... no. This is because the economy tanked and will hopefully recover over the next few years.
You personally will be better off if all those talented Indian programmers decide to move to the US rather than stay in India. If they stay in India they are in direct competition with you, but can afford to bid 50% of what you do on a job and still have a very nice lifestyle. If they move to the California they will want to have the same lifestyle, but due to their Californian cost of living they won't be able to bid lower than you on the same job.
Remember that as a lot of those Indian tech workers go home with an address book full of contacts in the US software industry and the knowledge that they can hire programmers in India that will allow them to bid on US contracts for much less than their former co-workers could. Better to keep them in the US, wanting US salaries and paying US taxes.
People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
My personal concern is that as this occurs the cost of Social Security will skyrocket (due to all those retiring folks), and if our federal budget keeps going the way it is we're going to end up with very high taxes that could offset the benefits of higher wages.
I think most people would agree that the US's current Social Security program is non-sustainable. I pay Social Security, but I don't expect to see any of that money when I retire in 30+ years. Fortunately, I am a pessimist and I'm planning for retirement without Uncle Sam's "help". Many of my coworkers are not US citizens. They must pay Social Security too, but they are not legally allowed to collect it (unless they become US citizens).
Does anyone here think that the US can or will phase out Social Security within our lifetimes? I understand that current Social Security recipients need to get paid, but I hope we can phase out this "benefit" so I can keep more of my paycheck each month. We could significantly increase Joe Sixpack's take-home pay without cutting "taxes"! We wouldn't need cuts in "taxes" or budgets (except Social Security). I'm not calling Social Security a "tax" because, supposedly, I will later get my money back, though the government will get to keep my compounded interest.
You can find more information about the US federal budget at federalbudget.com. The US spends more on Social Security that it does on the Department of Defense! Social Security spending is #2, close behind Health and Human Services at #1.
cpeterso
...for good coders.
I've been coding for twenty-one years. There always has been and always will be a shortage of good coders. The problem is there are too many average and way too many poor (or awful) coders. 95% of the people who write code shouldn't have been hired in the first place; someone should take them out back and cut their fingers off. Bad coders can write bad code faster than average or even good coders can fix it. Ads in the paper for a small busines looking for one coder bring somone in who sings the sweet song and their code eventually works. Then after that joker leaves, someone else comes in and and looks at what they've inherited. It's almost better to not take on that work.
Ever been billed out for $125 to fill in behind someone who turned on the manure spredder while they were coding?
The bottom line is lots-and-lots of people like to code and think they are coders, but they simply are not even average coders.
***Sterilize them so natural selection takes over. ***
Personally I think there have been some good things about the downturn(though before I started college I could expect to make far more than I can expect now). Prior to the tech bubble bursting there was admitedly millions in fake money to be made, but at the same time, that fake money was being given to absolutely anyone who could turn on a computer and put together a web page(pretty much anyone if they try). Now most jobs seem to be looking for a college degree as well as real world experience(like jobs for every other field), which means that if you have a college degree and you can manage to find yourself some real world experience(which is the challenge), you're looking at reasonable chances of employment, just not at what you used to make. It seems that many of the jobs that were lost were the people who were underqualified to begin with.
Those of use who can take advantage of the current system will be able to reasonably well, albeit not as well as we did/could have done before.
If I understand correctly, you replace the experienced people, with recent graduates. This lowers salaries. However, does this really reduce costs?
In reviewing code written by less experience co-workers, I have seen obvious improvements for readability, maintenance, debuggability, and performance (performance is secondary - except where it is needed). Personally, I review my own code for these type of improvements and when I can, I improve it.
I will surmise that it may reduce costs over the next 3 months, however, that cost reduction will be replaced with increased costs for maintenance, and finally a complete redesign because the code that has been developed is just too difficult to manage.
Yea, because all those devices are now working and everyone understands them. But if you are foolish to think we have hit the end of development in IT you should find a new field. Something new, strange and must have will appear in a couple of years. It always does, and when it shows up everyone will start buying and hiring again.
Bill Gates might be evil but nobody thinks he is stupid and yet he missed the importance of the Internet until it was almost too late. Events like that have happened several times in this industry and history hasn't stopped. And it will probably be NOW, while the world is worrying about other 'important' things that the next world shaking invention is working it's way out a garage somewhere. Be ready for it when it happens and be an early adopter and expert on it.
Democrat delenda est
This article was written to try to get people to buy technology training. In reality I expect most companies to be reducing the staff of their IT departments to try to become profitable again.
Computer systems these days are built with more redundant and more powerful components that are easier to maintain. Most companies have switched away from the Windows 9x line which saves a awful lot of time dealing with stupid desktop issues. We have also seen the change to web-based software which is getting cheaper and easier to implement and support every day. It is now possible for a small group (3 people or so) to manage a large pool of inexpensive web-servers (20-50) which supports a huge application used by thousands of people. This model is increasingly being used and it works well and saves bundles of money. This, combined with companies new-found zeal for cost cutting will drive the numbers of IT professionals down in the coming years.
My advice is if you aren't in IT, don't try to get into it unless you are really good with computers. If you are in IT but aren't very good at it, think about finding another career. The future in IT may not be very bright.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
I'm sorry there is another word for that - "Slave Labour". I don't care if it just an internship you are providing a service to the company and as such should be getting paid. Even if it is just minimum wage.
My experience is that there is a lot of diversity among my Indian coworkers. Some of them aren't so good, and others are wonderful. It's unfortunate that there aren't enough jobs for all of us, but I'm not sorry they came. They're my friends now. They've become "us".
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Hmm...i get out of college in 2007...maybe i should take my time...
Exactly! Party and shmooze. Socializing and shmoozing skills are a MUST these days. A quiet corner code jockey is too easy to replace by cheap overseas PhD's.
And, bag some babes while you are at it.
Table-ized A.I.
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It's clear that at one time America benefited from a prosperous manufacturing industry and led the world in efficiency. Then the Japanese came in with cheaper labor that worked longer hours at higher throughput. Then everyone else followed suite and America has all but abandoned manufacturing.
Now the information technology industry was built and grown on American soil. Even now most software is written in America and a vast majority of the infrastructure resides here.
But it's time for something else. Everyone else has figured out this whole "programming" thing, too. We need to move on and capitalize on the willingness of other nations to be our labor.
I know it is, and always will be, fashionable to bash Microsoft around here, but I really wish folks would stop talking about their developers as though they were drooling morons. I've known people who worked for Microsoft, and met a number of extremely bright developers, researchers, and even (gasp!) non-technical staff from their various branches, and most of them were capable, bright people.
/.'er.
Microsoft's screening and interview processes for programming positions are famously tough, and they attract many of the best and brightest straight out of school. Like any techie working for a large corporation, of course, they can't spend all day posting to web discussion boards about all the amazing PHP code they've been hacking together, but that doesn't mean that they do bad work.
Just becuase Microsoft's overall presence in the technology and business worlds is agressive, manipulative, and derivative of others' innovations doesn't mean that the folks "in the trenches" aren't at least as bright (and likely much more capable) as the usual
After all the H1B's end, a lot of people will have to head back to India. This will open up a lot of jobs.
Whoever said it will end? It is a continuous program. It might drop down a bit at the end of the year, but greedbags are lobbying to extend it, inventing "labor shortages" with phoney statistics just like they always do.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm well aware what employment is for, however "Do you know what is a laughable sum? $0.00. Anything else in a time of job shortage is good. Just because you can't get a job being lord high muck doesn't mean you can't move out into other areas, and man if you're on your last bagel you will do anything." that's not what you said. You might have ment something else, but. To put this and the other post I replied to in perspective. People have a lot in common with companies. They have expenses (food, rent, clothing, shelter, etc). They have investments (education in all it's forms previous, present and future, etc). And they may even have taxes, and dependents (shareholders) Now in either case would it be in any way benificial to "sell" what's being offered "below" one's break-even point? What about break-even? What does that do to the future? Sounds like "anything else" isn't the wise point you thought it was. Everyone's "break-even" point is different and advice that worked for business A will not always work for business B or C. Pride may have nothing to do with it, but practicality might. Keep that in mind next time you judge others.
The gartner group estimates that 38% of all IT jobs currently are outsourced to oversea's comapnies and that is expecting to grow over 50% during 2004!
Its going to get alot worse in the future as the remaining companies who have "expensive" American workers will feel the pinch of competition from those who outsourced and now sell there products cheaper.
http://saveie6.com/
You need to be careful on what you mean by 38% outsourcing. A lot of that is outsourcing American IT jobs in America. While India has grown, it is not yet that big.
Further, based on direct contacts with Indian outsourcing firms, there are two other phenomena of interest:
1. Indian outsourcers are hiring American front-ends.
2. Indian outsourcers are starting to do their own outsourcing as the Indian labor pool becomes more expensive.
Things that are outsourced tend to be the more "mechanical" jobs, requiring less innovation. Therefore, if you are supplying only marginal value with your current skill set, rethink.
...But they'll all be farmed out to India... and for a lot less than I'd be willing to take to relocate to India...
Although, perhaps I can make a lot of money building the network backbone to India that will allow this to happen on a large scale.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
That is the unintended consequence of connecting everyone everywhere. Now employers can hire anyone from anywhere.
No, this is a totally intended consequence of integrating the world's markets. Do you really thing stuff like NAFTA was dreamt up as anything but a way for companies to get cheap labor? It certainly hasn't provided any benefits to the citizens of North America w/r/t increasted availability of goods, more stable markets, better market competition, or what have you.
Cute thing is, if the US tried to enact legislation to protect its workforce (yeah right, not until Americans realize that billionaire oil tycoons are not, and will never be 'just regular Joes like you and me'), the WTO would probably slap it on the wrist for obstructing free trade.
I think you're overstating the case here. Outsourcing isn't just about the third world.
I'm an American living in Hungary. According to salary.com (at least) my line of work pays between 70-120K per year in the SF Bay Area. That's pretty consistent with what I've made there as a consultant, and what my friends there are making.
Now consider Budapest. Hardly third-world. About to join the EU. Highly-educated IT workforce, most speaking really good English in case it matters. Excellent infrastructure in most parts of town. A decent number of both natives and foreigners with serious IT experience in Western Europe and the USA.
Half of the above-mentioned salary would get you the equivalent spending power here, and in many ways a higher overall quality of life. Even with the ridiculously high taxes.
And Budapest, by Central-European standards, is a very expensive place to live.
I'm sure some version of the above is true for places like Bangalore too, though I haven't been there.
(And yes, a fair amount of outsourcing comes here, albeit more quietly than to, say, India.)
So when a company is thinking about international outsourcing as a way to cut costs, we shouldn't think it's always like Nike making shoes. For that matter I fully expect to see a lot of growth in regional outsourcing within the USA, once more infrastructure reaches the more rural areas.
This has been the case for a long time, and certainly predates the current economic downturn. The flip side of it is that, especially in IT, you still want quality and you still need some chain of personal relationships (and trust) in order to get it.
I think it's a good thing.
(
This Like That - fun with words!
The market for IT jobs from where I sit has not as much become stagnant as it has become more demanding for people who understand the domain in which they are working. For example, I work for an aerospace firm. This company would, under no circumstances, hire an IT professional unless that IT professional had an understanding of the business. After all, it is FAR easier to train an aerospace engineer how to be an effective coder than it is to teach the coder how to understand aerodynamics, propulsion, and thermodynamics. If you understand your domain, you are infinitely more valuable than if you can present yourself as "just a coder".
After reading the article, I am again struck at how vague reports such as this can often be. For example, it lists system admininstration as a field with increasing demand but doesn't mention administration of what architecture. I'm of the opinion the probable increase in admin roles will be related to the ever-increasing implementations of Linux in the workplace. That said, what programming languages do you expect to be most needed in 2010?
I said the same thing for years, but then I had an epiphany. That teaching HS is everyone's backup plan is what gives us so many uninspired, uninspiring teachers. Teaching is hard, and I respect my friends who are dedicated to it too much to consider it my backup.