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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?"
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It's hard to believe since I just laid off our last two Win32 guys Friday.
My guess is that the demand for windows specific programmers will be essentially non-existant in the future. Cross-platform apps will undoubtedly rule everywhere, even the desktop.
Yeah, but it's not so bad in academia. At least here, when we're hiring for programmers (which we can't now because of the budget crunch) if we have equally qualified resident and international candidates, we have to give preference to the resident candidate. No offense personally to chinese or indian programmers, but it's been my experience their database experience isn't good enough (we don't use fox pro or OSS dbs, which is all the experience they seem to have) and I find when it comes to coding they don't like to document, they do no preliminary project specifications but sit down and start programming, and have really bad programming habits. Besides, I like candidates that speak fucking english so I can understand it.
well, we've already got paranoid AIs. and AI psychiatrists.
My other car is a cons.
I would not be surprised if programming job opportunities doubled in less than 3 years!
The catch is, you need to move to a third word country to get one of those new programming jobs, or at least be willing to work at 3rd world rates.
That is the unintended consequence of connecting everyone everywhere. Now employers can hire anyone from anywhere.
Huge amounts of indian workers flowed into the country with H1B immigration status. In short, if you can program or do tech work you can live in the US as long as you work in the industry (or your h1b ends). This is factor in why no one can get a job in the silicon valley area. Lots of people were displaced. 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. This isn't like 20-30 jobs, it's like hundreds of thousands. I'm living in the bay area and it's funny cause jobs are so hard to get now. Entry level stuff requires like 5 years experience (isn't entry level about not having experience?) It's a rough time for some of us!
Nonse. Other countries for the same reasons were
also equally viable yesterday. Why would they
be more viable tomorrow? Please understand that
hourly rates is not the only consideration when
it comes to build a 5=Billion plant, or to where
to locate you business, in general. At least not
most of the time.
heh, I was wondering... so that means that by 2010 there will finally be demand for the supply of it & tech workers that was created in the 90's?
infoweek article on IT unemployment (nice graph)
I found in my job search that my longevity in the field was a problem. In general, years in the saddle directly translates into dollars. So its actually easier for younger less experienced yet well exposed candidates to land jobs because their lower cost.
So I would go in for a job that was a perfect fit for my experience, plus I could bring so much to the team. But never heard a thing. After talking with headhunters and other recruiters, it was clear that companies were looking at dollars first. In fact, I almost didn't get the job I have because they didn't feel that I would be happy with what they'd be willing to pay. This is true, but hey, its better than the nothing* I was making before!
In other news, the people I know in the VC arena say we're in year three of a six year slump in the IT industry.
Its great that you found a good job right out of school.
*Actually, panning $25/hr doing odd contracting work, when I could get it, and only then if I could get the client to pay up!
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
This is pure ITAA propoganda. This story comes out every year in a slightly different form. Even at the height of tech layoffs they were babbling on about how many IT jobs there were and how there wasn't enough workers to fill them all. The reason for tell these lies to so they can get congress to expand the H1B and H1 visa programs. The H1B limit falls back to 65,000 this fall so they are starting to put out these articles to lay the basis for claiming a shortage and the need for more importation of foreign workers.
I graduated with a Computer Engineering degree at the end of Decemeber, and after three long months of searching, I finally got a great job and am starting tomorrow. According to some of the recruiters I've talked to in the past couple of weeks, they are starting to see an increase in the number of jobs available in the field. If I can get a job with little real world experience in a town that has had hundreds (maybe thousand) of layoffs in the tech field, things must be looking up.
Yeah, but are you making $30k - $40k a year, or are they paying you a real salary?
I've seen many tech ads looking for "highly qualified, senior level positions, 10+ years experience, blah blah blah" that only pay $36k a year. They are banking on someone who got laid off and is desperate to take the position. I don't know about you, but I don't work for peanuts. BTW I found a new job 9 weeks after getting laid off that paid substantially more than what I was making before! Good jobs are out there, you just have to look harder for them these days.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
I graduated with a Computer Engineering degree at the end of Decemeber, and after three long months of searching, I finally got a great job.....If I can get a job with little real world experience....
The thing is, many places *don't* value IT experience that much. Thus, if you are under the delusion that you will keep going up and up over time, think again (unless maybe you are unionized in a gov job or soemthing). IT worker market value tends to peak around 5 years of experience in my observation. Sure, there are ways to buck the trend, but it requires running faster on an ever faster spinning treadmill.
The reason experience is not valued much is a complex issue, but the main reason is that the things that experience makes you better at are hard for IT-clueless managers to see. Thus, they focus on superficial things like how fast you can drag-n-drop pretty icons into their app. They are also afraid that experienced people will expect too much money, like they do in other professions.
Table-ized A.I.
When I started at my current place, out site had 22 people (including manager) supporting 600 people and probably 800 devices. That was 5 years ago. Three years ago we went down to approximately 9 people including the manager. This was not a surprise because the company was a contracting company which went down in business. It lost almost half it's staff by that time but maintained most of the devices. Money was almost non-existant and new PCs were a dream in most people's eyes. About 2 1/2 years ago we bid for a big project and gradually gained back 200 people to bring the user population back up to 500. What happened to the IT group? Nothing.. in fact, if two people hadn't left we would have had to lay off 1 or 2 more. Odd, considering the amount of work just increased 40%. Cut to beginning 2002... we are given extra money to hire two more help desk staffing contractors.. renewing tentatively every two months. Cut to 2nd quarter 2003.. those two help desk positions are now full time. We have 10 people. And now there will be double the positions? I don't think so... People learned and won't go down that road. If they can do less with what they have now, they'll keep it that way. And if they do.. it returns the staffing levels back to the way it was 15 years previously... now.. how screwed up is that??
In response to the question asked in the write-up, "Could this be a turning point in the labor market?" - no. This isn't talking about some specific turning point (and indeed most posts are currently noting that people feel the current workforce is so diminished that a doubling of jobs isn't much growth at all); rather this article is talking about a general demographic trend. We're entering the time period where the baby boomers are starting to retire, and the generations that follow after them do not have as large of a population. According to the article, "between now and 2010, for every new member added to the workforce there will be 2.6 new jobs created."
The title "Tech Jobs Projected to Double by 2010" comes from looking at the table provided at the bottom of the article where it states that the occupation of "Computer software engineers, applications" will grow from a current 380,000 jobs in 2000 to 760,000 jobs in 2010, or 100% growth. Note that that's job growth between 2000 and 2010, not between today and 2010 - so think about employment levels in 2000 instead of today; I know our company was twice as large in 2000 as it is today. The table actually lists 9 different jobs that I would call "Tech Jobs" that have pretty healthy growth rates - the tech slant in the article is that while all jobs are growing (in part due to baby boomer retirement) technology jobs are growing faster than any other jobs.
The implication of the article is that because this job growth rate will lead to a tighter employment market than was seen in the 1990's we will someday soon (well, someday before 2010) see the type of high wage growth and high starting wages in the tech industry that were a signature of the 1990's boom. All due to supply and demand in a labor market where people are retiring faster than new people enter the market.
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. (Of course, this will end up screwing the poor more than anyone else, of course, because payroll taxes aren't progressive - everyone pays the same percent no matter what.)
On a positive note (for those of us who call ourselves employees), this article should be a wake up call to employers to start treating their workers well, or they might have major problems in 7 years. With all the blogs, messageboards, and websites (F*ed Company comes to mind) that are storing a record of how companies treat their workers, you will end up paying tomorrow for the sins you commit today.
They all pop. It's their nature. The only question is exactly how long.
Hey great. I still have 3 more years in school so I'll be getting out right in time to exploit this one. I don't know about you guys but I was too young for the first one. Then when it blew up I was really pissed off that I missed out on all the free venture capital.
All joking aside, you're probably not the only person who feels that way. I for one missed out on the whole "get rich in tech" thing, by not finishing school and landing a programming job until right near the end of the first bubble...
Therefore, I predict that as greedy as people are, and as many people as out out there wanting to get rich.... as soon as it becomes even slightly obvious that the economy is *really* starting to recover, people are gonna be back all over tech stocks again, which means higher valuations for companies, which means more money to hire new programmers... and the flow of venture capital should loosen up again as well...
So basically, I think we'll have a sort of "mini second tech bubble", except with one difference this time.. it won't be a bubble, it will be for real? Why? For one, because venture capitalists will be more demanding in terms of deciding who to float money to... you'll still be able to get it, but you'll have to have a REAL business plan, and maybe even have an MBA on board... not just two geeks with a cool new idea... secondly, because people will take advantage of the lessons learned during the first tech bubble, to create real companies that actually stand a chance to make a real profit... unlike last time, where it was just "get to market first, get as many clicks as possible, and worry about profits later, blah, blah"
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
I agree completely, on all points made. In fact I would like to see the H1B program eliminated completely in favor of a program making it easy for anyone with certain kinds of skills (engineering, medicine, computers) to easily get green cards and become citizens.
Sure it increases the number of people competing with us for jobs here, but the key word is 'here'. If they remain in third or second world countries they will still be competing with us, but at cut rates because of lower cost of living. Bring them here and make them good capitalists and consumers like the rest of us. America will be the better for it, and the rest of the world the poorer.
But, as it stands, the H1B program is more like bondage than anything else. It means that the workers are not competing fairly for work in a free market. So we have all the problems and none of the benefits of an America bound brain drain...
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
Sure, tech jobs will probably double in the next seven years. But tech salaries will probably be halved.
Face it, my six-figure-salary career is going to become the equivalent to that of your average librarian, cashier or even mechanic.
I think the mechanic analogy is probably the best. There is little difference between your average mechanic and your average computer/software/techie engineer type - other than one is physical and the other is not.
Does your average mechanic make six figures? Hell no. Is your average mechanic treated by the public as anything more than a barely-literate high-school drop-out (even if they aren't)?
If you want a respectable career where you are considered a valuable professional, find something else. The writing is on the wall for us.
Everyone is talking about IT positions. The real story will be the full time positions that are offered in the workforce. Just about all of the full time positions will be part-time related with no benifits. Companies just want to hire someone to complete a task and pay them. Forget about anything elese. Guess what.... The wages will also decline to a point of low wage earners. Gen-X's are going to get really screwed. It's really based on the amount of activity in the market place. Which at this point of time, based on previous history. Is at an all time low. When is the last time anyone has seen a nation wide project? I'm not counting the War in Iraq.
I took course in heavy machinery controlling (Cranes, Bulldozers, Payloaders etc...) and I expect to make just as much. Paid overtime, what a luxury! :>
J.
I can only tell you that our company has always outsourced our programming to American companies and consultants, while we retain our support and administration in-house.
I can't imagine what it would be like if we started outsourcing our programming work to third world countries. It's difficult enough sometimes to get American programming types to understand what you want, or why things aren't working correctly in plain english, let alone try to deal with people through significant language/cultural barriers. Projects can get pretty costly when pieces have to be done over again and again because the programmers didn't quite get what you meant the first time around.
I think American companies who try to cut costs by outsourcing to third world countries are going to get exactly what they pay for.
This is not meant to be a slight against programmers in other countries, but programming is a service, not a product. I think that it is ultimately less costly to purchase services from within your own country (or even city/state) wherever possible even if it appears to be more expensive on the surface.
Some companies understand this. Some don't. The companies that don't will suffer eventually.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/13/magazine/13UNEMP LOYED.html
The above article talks about a guy whose former job position was "vice president and a director of interactive marketing for Rapp Digital" currently employed as a sales person at a Gap store.
Talk about diversifying your skillset!
Depends on the person, just like with any age group. The kids who really want to learn and write good code, do. The ones who half-ass it and do it to be "1337" write crappy code. Personally, I'm 18. I've been programming for a couple of years now. I know I'm not a hacker god - there's a LOT I dont know, and I'm constantly learning. But by the same token, I know the code I write is a lot cleaner than code I've seen written by people that are a good deal older than me. No, I couldn't write a kernel driver to save my life at this point, but what I do know how to do, I make a point to do well.
You'll find people like me in ANY age group, and you'll find the ones that do the job poorly right there with them. I think the reason why you may be associating crap code with young kids my have to do with the fact that in older generations, you REALLY, REALLY had to want to do this as the equipment was expensive and hard to get. With younger generations, it's a much more ubiquitious thing, you're going to have more people that do it simply because it's more accessible. I've been around computers constantly literally since I was born, and what I had is insanely primitive compared to what kids just starting school now have. It doesn't hurt either that computers have lost their geek stigma. It catches me off guard every time someone my age thinks the fact that I know what I do is "cool."
My point is, there are a lot of bad young programmers out there, but there are a lot of good ones too. I graduate next month. I've already worked fairly heavily with DirectX, OpenGL, and SDL and dabbled some with MySQL some on the side, all before starting college. There are a lot of kids out there who started a lot sooner than I did too, and are a lot better at it. Hell, the kid who wrote DeCSS was my age. I think you're a bit too quick to discount the young generation of programmers, personally.
I'm graduating (also with a Computer Engineering degree, mine from UC Santa Barbara) this June and after searching for the last 6 months I just landed one a couple weeks ago, starting in July. Pays SIGNIFIGANTLY more than 30-40k. Very small company (in contrast to my internships since 1998 for Northrop Grumman), but they survived the dot-com crash and seem to be managed well and are making lots of money even in the cut-throat chip design world.
:)
Firmware/embedded systems programming are where it's at.
On the other hand, I've probably applied to several hundered positions over the last few months. Had about 6 interviews, got one offer.
Jobs are out there. Luckily I still had school to keep me occupied, although I was starting to stress over what I was gonna do when I got out. But you just need to find an employer who's really looking and have SOMETHING marketable about yourself. For entry-level, internships help. But (laugh if you will) I'm sure that the UCSB curriculum got me this job. My friends going to more respected schools always gave me shit about UCSB (party school, blah blah blah) but I've done more practical design work here than any of my other engineering friends.
Maybe I'm just lucky. But as long as my paychecks don't bounce I guess I don't care
It's interesting to note how many people from the United States on /. and other boards are complaining about the lack of jobs in the tech industry. It seems that although jobs elsewhere pay less, there are far more of them.
Here in South Africa, the tech industry hasn't been through a so-called slump, in fact, the job market is probably better now than it was in 1999. The difference I see, though, is that most people here are talking about programming jobs. Going by pure numbers, most tech jobs here are either in networking or hardware.
Even at our company, which isn't a tech company by any means, we have 4 full time techs working on the in-house system (post-sales, customer relations, operations, call tracking) written (mainly) in Java and Python, and doing general network/system admin.
Friends that I met at Unisa who graduated with Computer Science degrees haven't by and large had any problems finding jobs, although it seems that more experienced people are sought after in more advanced areas. But the so-called lower-end jobs (and yes, I know that there are more advanced sub-divisions of each of these, but I'm talking about entry-level to mid-level) - Networking, System Admin, Hardware, Support - are pretty easy to get into.
We hang the petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to public office. - Aesop
3 ISP's, 7 years, feel the pain.
1st one - out of business... Mismanagement
2nd one - out of business... Horrid Mismanagement
3rd one - out of business... Illegal Management (bad things happen to those who default on contracts to buy)
So I figured I needed to go do something else.. A nice change, so to speak. Programming.
8 months (bought my first house on the 7th) and the economy being as bad as it is causes major loses and sold the company.
5 months and NO jobs. Construction (which I'm quite capable of) is not open due to the large influx of Mexican workers. Programming jobs are being taken by internal promotion. Admins are sticking where they exist. And the joke that is unemployment is more than flipping burgers, less than cost of living. So I now have to sell my home, move BACK in with my parents, and become the one thing I swore I'd never be. (No mystery here folks, Unemployed and living at home being older than 21.)
I'd go back to acedemia, but frankly I'd have no way of supporting myself even IF I could afford tuition an books. Could get a loan, but oddly enough, I know more degreed individuals out of work than non-degreed.
And now we're at war. Is there any way to incarcerate every stinking politician in the country for gross incompetance?
-What have you contributed lately?
Yeah, but are you making $30k - $40k a year, or are they paying you a real salary?
Sorry, but $30-40k for a fresh graduate is pretty reasonable. The problem is that people experienced the late 90s job market as it was how things always were, but in fact it was an abberation. A recent graduate should be looking for experience right now, only start worrying about salary once you are established. The first 3 years of everyone's career will usually suck in pay terms. 5 years in, and you'll be glad you went for the experience rather than the quick score.
I've seen many tech ads looking for "highly qualified, senior level positions, 10+ years experience, blah blah blah" that only pay $36k a year.
They're only shooting themselves in the foot, because you can guarantee that that employee will bail at the first opportunity. A decent company pays decent salaries, because it wants to only hire good people and it wants to keep them. That isn't sentimentality - it's just good business sense.
H1-B and L1 visa program, It all gets better with L1 visas .
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All they have to do is have a presence in the US and another country and they can import labor at UNLIMITED levels to the US
This is NOT just the IT field , in fact a few
insurance companies in connecticut have laid
of US workers in favor of L1 visas from Eurasia.
This trend is going to continue , but here is the funny thing
Most of these companies customers are americans, not ppl in Eurasia
So they are going to enter a never ending downward spiral as they cut jobs in the US,
ppl are going to spend less because they do not have a job . Thus this will EVENTUALLY cut into their profits
The foreign labor meanwhile sends this money to a foreign market, after all that is where
they live
3 Step process - remove jobs from US, Send jobs overseas(import temp labor), outflow of funds overseas
So not only are you increasing unemployment,
but money that was once earned then spent here
is removed TOTALLY from the economy
No amount of Tax cuts is going to compare to
4 million lost jobs averaging $40,000 a year
for a round number
That is 160 billion a year no longer earned here, and sent elsewhere
It's one thing to lose your jobs to someone
that will spend the money here, and another
to lose it to someone that sends the vast
majority of it home to Eurasia
As this starts to impact the economy here
and ppl spend less it will cause further
layoffs, bankruptcy, and foreclosures
Watch the housing market over the next 5 years
The american companies are tagetting short
term profit, and long term euthanasia in Eurasia.
When the count hits 10 million laid off americans, that will require 10 million
new jobs, and will funnel 400 billion out of the country
True those CEO's living in the lap of luxury
will rake in huge profits in the short term,
but it is long term suicide
The TRULY terrible thing is your rep in
congress either Dem or Repub supported
this almost 100% in a vote AFTER the DOT COM
BUST " began ", doubling the H1-b Cap
America for sale...SOLD...
They will reap what they sow, a bitter harvest.
Peace...
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
It has a rather depressing article about three middle-age professionals who have been unemployed for several years. Two have technology backgrounds, although only one appears to have anything approaching a hands-on technology job.
Regardless, the whole personal downward spiral was presented, including ugly spousal relationships, disappearing financial futures, McJobs, and so on.
One guy had a job as some kind of "New Media/New Economy" guru, one guy had a PhD in physical chemistry but became an "IT Consultant" and another guy was a banker.
The banker was in the best situation, kids college funds and his retirement were pretty squared away, it was mainly maintaining his current standard of living that was at risk.
The New Media/Economy guy (who has a set of computer books, "Einstein's Manuals" or something, written pre-Dummies) seems fairly finished. He's working at the Gap for $10 and it seems unlikely that his particular speciality will ever be revived.
The IT Consultant was hard to judge. He's obviously smart (PhD), but what kind of an IT Consultant is he? He was one of those guys that moved into IT in the 90s from another tech field and probably got pretty advanced positions due to his educational background and general intelligence relative to what was available in the job market now. The bummer for him is that he's looking for those same, $150K jobs and they're gone forever. If he was looking for techmonkey work he might do better, but it wouldn't support the $2.5k mortgage.
What I can't decide is if the economy is permanently shrunk or if the "new economy" portion + excessive profits part only. It's scary, anyway.
I'm one of those ^D greybeards (48). The shop I'm in now has 4 US citizens and 8 on-shore (US) Indian contractors and another 5 offshore in India. These guys are paid $20 / hour (sans benefits). We're equal opportunity: we'll offer you $15 for J2EE/Oracle stuff. :-;
We use IM (btw, the offshore team works the cateye shift to accomodate us) and netphone to keep in conduct business. We expect a software drop every day.
I think the industry is a death spriral for we keyboarding types. I feel like a machinist in the 1960's when computerized milling machines killed this skill. In addition, cheap communications has killed the economics of the well paid computer guy: smart guys are a dime a dozen, machines cost nothing and as we all know, the knowlege is in the documentation for all to pick up. I just hope I can make to 67 (20 years - doesn't seem possible).
I do expect to be driving a school bus sometime.
Welcome to age of lowered expectations. The 90's will *never* return. ...jlg
I'll be lucky to still be employed in 2 months... and I've been looking, but my own opinion at this point is that my salary is probably an issue (although I don't really consider $81K outrageous for an experienced Sysadmin, in this market I'm sure there are enough unemployed to be willing to take $60k for the same job).
Then again, I'd consider less depending on the company... to get away from the boss that calls me a f-ing a-hole on a regular basis, because I refuse to kiss their ass.
On the bright side, I made a point over the years to sink as much as I could into my house.. to the effect that I paid it off last year after about 11 years. So my only expenses are taxes, insurance, bills, and food/gas. Knowing the end is coming, I've been making a point of banking as much as I can for the inevitable. I could survive for a few years if I needed to.
I've seen too many people who make good money and have to live "high-on-the-hog". Yeah, when I started out I bought a small house w/ a $1200/month mortgage, which was tough at the time but got easier over the years. I have some friends who were loooking to buy a house... 4500 sq ft for *two* people. They are taking home over $8k/month between the two of them, and have no savings. Or another guy I know who'se $300K house was suddenly appraised $100K higher in this housing boom, so he *borrows* another $80K to put in a heated in-ground pool... and then loses his job. Passes to the local swim-hole would have been far cheaper.
I'm actually looking forward to being unemployed for a while. I've got friends to visit, and I really want to re-evaluate the whole IT thing... maybe switch careers. It was nice while it lasted, but its just too stressful and cutthroat right now to be worth it.
Doesn't more experience make a difference or do employers look for pieces of paper that say I complete some courses dealing with particular hardware/software?
... leave it off the resume. If you can't afford a certification then you can't get it can you? If you can't afford certification I bet you can't afford college either since a lot of the same monies can be used for both. (Personally if it's real education versus certification I think a real education wins hands down... but not for job getting reasons.)
If you can get certifications but not experience which should you go and get? Wait? didn't I just premise that you couldn't get experience? So that would mean... if you can get a certification it won't hurt. If it turns out to hurt
What do employers look for? Depends on the employers. Remember employers are the same people that ask for crazy things like "5 years experience programming in VB, printer drivers in C, and IPL with Ada95"
True personal experience:
I was trying to get a Unix job hacking PERL and the second interviewer said:
"Do you have an MCSE?"
I answered no.
She said, "Well, there are plenty of applicants with MCSE's for this job."
"I have a four year college degree in computer science."
She replied rather miffed, "Well, I don't even think we should be talking to people without MCSE's."
Now put that in your bonnet and soak for a while!
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