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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!
But I need a job now!!!
Hacking the Network
Double of nothing is still nothing. Sorry.
Not that I have a problem with that...
In other news, the population of Indians and Chinese living in the U.S. is expected to double by 2010.
Hmmmmm....
Funny how over the last 2 years my department went to a third of its size...from nearly 40 at the height of the boom to only 12...and now it's going to take 7 years to double current numbers? Looks like a lot of techies are gonna be out of jobs for awhile to come!
My company is moving locations and intends on laying off everyone who doesn't want to relocate...let me tell ha how excited I am!
I was a fool for thinking that an ISP job was a stable gig...
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
More Coders = More Bugs More Bugs = More Tech Support Guys More Tech Support Guys = More Confused People More Confused People = More Montiors with fist sized holes in them
I hope that I have enough Top Ramen to last until then.
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.
That's why I do AI programming. I figure the last employed programmer will be the person programming a robot to program!
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...
Jobs are about to double, but not in the USA!. Tech support and programming jobs around the world will double by 2010, and even if it does double in the USA, the more it doubles the lower our salaries.
I'm sorry but soon programmer will be what teenage kids do, like mc donalds of today.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
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.
I think your lack of formatting is enough incentive for me to go ahead and register right now.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
We are experiencing what will be later known as the beginning of the second tech bubble.
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 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!
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
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
I can only imagine your outrage at being fired by your own code.
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.
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.
Carefully read the article, and you will see that the majority of quotes deal with "expanding your skill set." That's good advice, even in the best of times. But the quotes are coming from persons who directly benefit from unemployed IT workers going back to school or testing for certification, so-called workplace and staffing consultants.
Times are tough all over, and you can't begrudge these people for trying to create business for themselves, but in these tough economic times, it seems irresponsible for the Chicago Tribune to report this as news. The article represents nothing more than opinion which a lot of people currently without work will misinterpret as fact and act upon, waiting for the predicted boom to occur.
Luckily, I am still employed, but I know that if the current economic conditions don't change for the better, I will be looking for work in a few months myself. It seems to me that one of the most irresponsible, even stupid, things that I could do now is to dip into my savngs to "improve my skill set" because a bunch of experts with books to sell have convinced the Chicago Tribune that there is another high tech boom just around the corner!
My mortgage doesn't care how up to date my skill set is. Neither does the grocery bill each week. I sympathize with those who are looking for work. I'll probably be doing the same thing in a few months, and I think the smartest thing any IT worker can do right now is prepare to get through the here and now, and not these boom times that are part of imagined future.
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.
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.
html ENGINEERS!
oh my fucking _GOD_!!!!
html *ENGINEERS*!
is this the end?
A computer programmer per the BLS, will:
A software engineer for applications per the BLS, will:
And a software engineer for systems will:
The BLS also mentions that a job as a software engineer is only likely with at least a bachelor's degree in a related discipline.
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.
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.
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
Then the average computer tech will be an AI psychiatrist of a sort!
Will the real Susan Calvin please stand up?
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
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."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Economists have successfully predicted 8 of the past 5 recessions.
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
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/
Ok, better. Looks fine now.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.