Slashdot Mirror
Down and Out in White-Collar America
XorNand writes "Fortune has a pretty sobering article on the employment situation for white-collar workers. By many accounts, we've never had it harder--the slump in the 80's primarily hit blue-collar workers. While bleak, things might be inching towards the light; as my econ professor says, jobs are the last thing to recover after a recession."
It's a good thing my shirts have green collars.
"But in the past two or three years companies have turned to India and the Philippines for much more sophisticated tasks: financial analysis, software design, tax preparation, even the creation of PowerPoint presentations."
Apparently Fortune isn't hiring software people either.
Vonal Declosion
American economy has been hit hard. Enron, etc, and september 11 couldn't have come at a worse time. Not trying to be flamebait, but the usual 'let's start a war or 2 to fix up the economy' hasn't worked :-(
According to the Debt clock, each Citizen's share of this debt is $22,684.87.
he National Debt has continued to increase an average of $1.47 billion per day since September 30, 2002!
The Fix? I don't know. Welcome to Globaliziation.
I'm not Seth.
I'm an EE major, and the teacher keeps saying, "If you graduated two year earlier, companies would literally fight for every one of you... But now...".
Oh sure, eveything was fine when it was manufacturing jobs that were exported to other countries. Now that white-collar/no-collar jobs like software development are being exported, suddenly it's alarming.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My wife who like me is a GenX'r is now a manager in charge of hiring programmers, etc.
Well when the topic of GenX's who cannot get work came up in SlashDot I talked this over with my wife. She yeah she hires young programmers. I asked how come? She said that they learn quicker and are more flexible.
I looked at her with amazement and said HUH? Are you bs'ing me? I said you are just as bad as those other managers. Promptly I pointed out that I can learn very quickly, etc, etc. She said, but fine that is you, but not me. I have problems learning these days in contrast to previous years. And GenX's demand too much.
What I learned from this is as follows:
1) Managers suck! They look at their own perspective and think the rest of world must be like that.
2) People like to validate sterotypes. ONLY young people can learn new technologies and are flexible.
3) GenX's are screwed!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Don't forget about the president's impact on the economy.
It's been a long time since we've had such an idiot in the whitehouse: not elected, taking away your rights, giving disproportanate tax cuts to his wealthy friends, ignoring corporate execs who have cost the economy billions, fighting questionable wars.
He's making us into servants.
Back when I was a young'n, we had these things called JOBS. We had to walk 5 miles through 6 foot snowdrifts just to get to work, then labored until we were exhausted. And we LIKED it!
With the demise of so called 'blue collar' jobs and now the demise of 'white collar' jobs, what, if anything will actually be done in developed western countries like the United States and Europe?
It seems the only thing that will be left is retail and the public sector. But where will people obtain money to buy things in stores if all other activities occur in less developed/cheaper countries. We can't all work in shops or government, can we? The balance of payments would be totally off-balanced if we did.
The current arrangement cannot last.That companies keep outsourcing things to foreign countries. Of course, it saves them money, but at what cost? As they do that, unemployment in the US will only rise. I guess the prospect of higher profit margins outshines the prospect of giving a hard-working American a job.
Ok, let's say that these things do allow for more investment into other markets. But with the US economy in the shape it is in right now, will these companies want to spend the money on possibly risky ventures into new markets, or just claim the money as profit and make all their execs super rich with fat bonuses.
Or maybe I'm bitter because I can't find a job.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
I've noticed that lots of people who were highly paid during the dotcom boom are not recovering well, despite the existence of jobs, only requiring a little bit of creativity to find them. I wouldn't say that things are in the overinflated state they were, with people being paid $100K for basic system administration, but jobs can be found. I think that the problem is that most of the people who were making the insane dollars they were don't want to take on a $30K-$40K job, even if basic administration or technician work will pay the bills. They can't forget the lavish lifestyles that they lived.
I was affected by it too, for I managed to get out of field techin' to start doing Quality Assurance Engineering. That job lasted a year. When it ended, I looked for other QA jobs, basic IS admin jobs, and the like, and I ended having to go back to what I knew very well, which was field tech. It's not the most fun, the most glamourous, but it does pay the rent, gets me away from a desk all day, and doesn't leave me sitting at home feeling dejected for myself for being unemployed for months and months.
If the market picks up, and QA positions become available in the money and stability that I want, I may leave my current job for one. Until that time arrives, I'm going to be happy where I am. It's not perfect, but life isn't fair, and those that get off their asses and try to make something for themselves will be a lot happier than those who give up.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I know it's not glamorous, but think about it...
All of my computer-industry related friends bemoan the state of the industry, in general. Those of us who have jobs face lower pay, longer hours, and general harassment by management, as management knows if we don't, there's 10 others out there that will. Talk about bum luck.
However, most of my friends who are skilled "trademen" of some sort are all working. They may not make the big bucks (although most of them still make in the $12-15 range locally, which is a decent sum), they're working. And when there's no work, well, it's time to kick back and relax. Isn't this what life's supposed to be about? (fortunately, there's never been a prolonged period of no-work for them, I can imagine a long spout would trigger the same anxieties we've faced: How are we gonna pay the rent? Food? Utilities? Of course, most of them fall into the "Fuck the rent, I'm getting a tattoo" category, but that's another story). What do they do?
Plumbers. People still shit and piss and pipes still get clogged.
HVAC. Gotta have A/C in the summer and heat in the winter around here (your mileage may vary depending upon your locale).
Welders.
Construction workers (ever see Office Space?)
Painters
Tilesetters
Manual Laborers.
Like I said, it's not glamorous, but you may actually find you enjoy doing such work. And it adds to your skillset in general (Ever see those Carlton Sheets ads? Buy property, fix it up yourself, sell for profit. In today's economy, the interest rates are spot on and lots of property is available on the cheap). And it gets you out of the house. Your parents will be proud.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Not to give up my secret or anything, but I've figured out how to get through this, for me at least...
When you were laid off/graduated college to discover no jobs available/etc., where did you go first? Same place I did, I bet. The bar. And you probably spend most of the money you do come up with right there, tipping those bartenders that best help you drink away the economy...
So I just completed bartending school, and I'm already fighting off job offers. A perfect complement to my CS degree for sure, based on my new economic theory.
All the outsourcing examples given share one common requirement - the need for reliable, high-speed Internet connections between central HQ and the workhou^H^H^H^Hsatellite offices. While a lot of network management can be done remotely, there is still a need for a physical presence - even if only to check that the cables haven't come loose...
I was laid off four months ago from a software development firm with 170 others working with me. In those four months - i had only 2 interviews (with one leading to an offer very recently) & i consider myself lucky to have had those because many of my collegues are yet to get their first call.
The four month period was a interesting experience & here are some things i learned/did in that time:
1. Remind yourself "often" that it is not your fault. Economy is bad and nothing stays that way forever.
2. Network: I created a simple discussion forum on my server (http://www.toastforums.com/) and asked all my 170 peers to register. It turned out to be very useful in discussing subjects like - how to get our unemployment benefits & severence packages/Over Time pay from our old firm. Many of them started posting job opportunities too as soon as they found themselves in a job.
3. Actively prepare towards something : How about a certification that those recruiters so much like ? Or simply read tech forums and keep updated on any new thing on your subject that shows up. This gave me an artificial feeling of getting somewhere which was very useful to keep my hopes floating.
4. Apply to every ridiculous job on the web, even to those recruiters with fake job descriptions. This could seem like a futile effort with many not even drawing a "hi there, i got you email response". But, again - its one of those exercises that help in keeping a healthy hope alive.
Thats about it.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Whilst I'm far from being an economist, isn't this sort of thing completely and utterly unsustainable? I think its fair to say that lots of tech company's workers are pretty much their customers too. So if the majority of tech companies continue to outsource their development contracts in Asia aren't they going to eventually ruin their customer base? I mean they pay pittance to Indian workers who could not afford to be a customer of theirs. Don't believe the bullshit - get a quote from a offshoring firm for the chargeout rate on a developer - a client of ours recently did and it was around $10US per hour for a senior developer. So you can image what the poor sod cutting the code is actually getting paid. Never mind - some bright spark in 10 years time will decide that the next big thing to fix a country's economy will be to repatriate workers and the cycle will continue... Its already happened here in Australia with outsourcing vs permanent employees.
Cheaper services, like cheaper PCs, is good for anyone who needs it, and the current outsourcing wave is likely to be very good for the global economy in the long term. It just means we in the service sector have to find other ways of passing our time, getting paid less and working on smaller, local projects.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Well, in this area (Washington DC metropolitan) depending upon the type of construction work you do, you can be just as screwed as the white-collar types. The late 90s saw a huge commercial construction boom, but with the current economic bust, there are huge buildings that either (a) have never been finished, (b) have never been occupied, or (c) are now standing empty because all of the tenents went bankrupt. That means no new commercial construction. In Loudoun county alone (home of AOL & MCI/Worldcom), 16% of the office space is empty, and if MCI/Worldcom is forced to close their offices here (more than one million square feet), that figure would double.
Residential construction is still hot, but "used" home sales are starting to outstrip new home sales, and new residential construction is moving farther away from the metro area, simply because most of the inner metro areas are already built to zoning capacity, and "smart growth" advocates (you know, the sorts who have a $1m+ house on 5+ acres of land, and want everyone else to live in apartments near metro stops) have squashed new local development.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
Obviously, you don't know many dot bomb coders. I've known several that have struggled to eat, pay rent, and other basics. Especially those that are fresh out of school and didn't get any of the riches from the boom. The fucking IT market was flooded by schools pushing through no talent, no interest folks that just wanted the big paychecks. Now it's a real bitch to prove you actually know what you're doing. Several years of job experience? Means nothing now. People with several years of job experience and a couple degrees are lucky to keep decent jobs. If you live outside major cities your doubly screwed. Nobody is paying to relocate fresh hires these days and most won't even give you an interview if you're out of area. A lot of coders are being forced to compete for jobs flipping burgers in order to stay fed themselves. Did you ever try to apply for a job at Burger King when the 18yo manager hiring you can't even pronounce the qualifications on your resume? Uhh huh. I'll teach those smart asses the meaning of overqualified!
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Hi!
/off-shoring business or start one of your own! Heck, if the companies will export 3 million jobs in the next few years to save money, I'd say there is money to be made in helping companies save money. Like they say, if you can't beat 'em , join 'em.
:-)
Instead of worrying about how we all are headed to the homeless shelters and how the profit-hungry Corporations and the Government is to blame, can we think of some ways to "offshore-proof" our employability?
Here are some suggestions:
(1) Move up the chain!! Instead of being the one whose job is being exported, think of ways to crawl you way up the ladder to become the one who is doing the job-exporting.
(2) Work in Defense. If you are writing software for the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, administering the UNIX cluster at the local Air Force Base or cranking out Code for the F-22 at Boeing/Lockheed Martin, rest assured, your job isn't going to be outsourced to a shop in Bangalore - even if they promise to do it for free!
(3) Work for an out-sourcing
(4) Get into Sales and customer-facing jobs. I know y'all like to work in T-shirts with ketchup and coffee stains but may be it's time to get a makeover, buy a suit and start honing up on your people-skills. A company cannot hire someone in Russia to do a face-to-face meeting with a client in Chicago or Atlanta. An added advantage - The makeover and newly found people skills will help you get dem girlz too!
Of course all the above is easier said than done.. but saying it is still a better start than all the complaining and worrying...
Another Anonymous Coward loses his job due to Chronic Foot In Mouth syndrome.
Right. You have a job. You got job security? You got the code to prove it? Doesn't mean a licking difference, because a faltering economy means just that: FALTERING. Your job exists now, but will it in a year, month, week or will you get a pink slip tomorrow?
How do you know you won't be knocking on IBM's doors praying to be let in or accepting some shit job like Game Testing for EA or something like that? Because, frankly, there is zero job security in the tech world today.
Karma: Non-Heinous
Instead of hanging, why not eliminate the tax benefit of moving work and companies off-shore.
If you don't allow companies to deduct costs for moving work off-shore. It is a double slapp when a company moves the work offsjore, to foreign workers, then give the company a tax advantage for that.
Fight Spammers!
All of this is basically unnecessary. With a little more work we could have cheap nuclear power or perhaps hydrogen. Start up mining projects in nearby parts of space and you solve matrial shortages. Once that's done, we could build machines to do the work we need to do and free us all from labor and poverty. This isn't sci-fi, it's something attainable by mankind in a generation or two. The problem is there are too many people opposed to this. Oil companies, old money who'd loss their importance without scarcity, polititions and leaders who thrive on war and stife (George Bush, I'ma lookin' at you), etc, etc.
Probably the silliest group that opposes this sort of thing is common laborer's afraid of losing jobs to machines (that includes white collars, remember how many accountants got put out of work by Lotus 123?). It seems to me instead of getting angry at the tool that takes your job, you ought to be mad at people who control the distribution of goods made by those tools to the detriment of the rest of society. There's something really wrong with a society that lets 2% of the people control 95% of the wealth. There ought to be less talk about bolstering the economy and more about improving the general standard of living. Oh well, not like that's gonna happen anytime soon.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Ironically, it's a pretty good place to be these days. Defense spending is way up for obvious reasons, and it's poured into high-tech programs that demand a lot of engineering. Many, many people bailed out for the tech boom in the late '90s, which thinned out the employee base. I won't say there is a massive shortage of people or a huge number of unfilled openings, but there is a healthy market with employers like Lockheed, Raytheon, CIA - calls from recruiters and job hopping are pretty common where I work.
And, national security jobs can't be outsourced to India - 99% of them have US citizenship as a basic requirement.
The company I work for is doing great, mainly because I'm underpaid.
I actually typed about 1000 words describing what I do there, but decided to scrap it. Now I feel bad for spending an hour on this post.
... for companies to do so. Many were hiring people just to have them available to them for work. They never gave them anything revolutionary to work on (by and large), and ended up wasting them. It was a bad investment, planning for something that didn't pan out.
It didn't help that people *flocked* to technical programs at universities, forcing excessive weed-out classes to reduce admissions numbers. I ended up ceasing to ccontinue with my CSE major not because I didn't want to learn the trade to do something that I liked, working with computers in newer, exciting ways, but because I didn't want to do group projects with people who had no idea what a spreadsheet was, and we all were to be basically graded on the performance of the lowest member of the group. (yes, I am bitter)
People flocked to the programs for the money. There's no money now, and there are a lot of trained people who are very upset about not being able to make a five year career on a four year education. This is one fad that died.
I believe that it'll level out again, and that suitable numbers of college-training-required technical jobs will come back, but hopefully this period of bust will be remembered, and the trend won't repeat for a long time.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The next problem is that a weak Dollar will drive international economics to use other currencies for trading contracts. And with the appearance of the Euro there is a single powerful currency with a strong economic background to take the Dollar's place. The US goverment tries to prevent this by military means (like Irak) but can't wage war on everyone. And have the Dollar as the international trade currency is extremly important for the US, because you can finance all your resource consuption just by printing new money. In fact this was a "money-for-US" tax for other countries but this will be gone soon.
A weak currency is sometimes just a slow poison. That's the reason why the European are so keen on having a hard Euro.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
For example, from the Fortune article: Klinck earned more than $200,000 a year at MetLife, managed more than 1,000 people, and knows languages and programs ranging from Fortran to PeopleSoft, but cold-calling for jobs has been--well, cold.
I hope that Mr. Klinck reads my post and finds it useful. Klinck's problem or anyone at his high level in the employment food chain is that there are very few companies who could afford him. The "Catch-22" is that even if he says he will take a salary cut in half--$100,000--companies won't believe he will live happily on this relative pittance. He is screwed in corporate America.
Unless he is very lucky and lands a MetLife clone job, his best bet is to hire himself. Mr. Klinck has very little choice other than to become self-employed. He is the only person/company who can afford to hire him.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
What is Sweden's secret? Progressive taxation. Average production workers in Sweden pay no income tax to their central government because the bottom bracket starts about a tenth above the average production worker's salary. The Swedish tax rate is typically about 57% of income earned above that base. Sweden only has two central government tax brackets: 0% and 25%, so their "federal" taxes are actually closer to the "flat tax" than ours are in the U.S. The additional 32% or so varies by local jurisdiction, as does the income bracket at which it takes effect.
The problem in the U.S. is that top-bracket income earners (including corporations, medium-sized businesses, and most of the top 1% rich, excluding some of the prominent top rich in the media spotlight) pay a huge amount of money in order to help elect government officials who will keep the top tax brackets low. This effectivly "saves" them an even larger amount of money, except for the externalities like crime rate, debt, and property values. We used to have regulations providing equal air time for federal candidates, but Reagan's FCC did away with those, so most candidates today, even most nationally prominent Democrats, sure know which side of their bread is buttered on. There are some notable exceptions, however.
Back when I was in highschool (Class '01), I was sold on taking Cisco classes at our Community College for the better part of my day all year. My initial plan was to graduate early, get a job doing whatever, but I went for Cisco instead because 1) It was 13 free college credits and 2) EVERYONE was telling me how I'd be making $30k/yr easy, probably even before I got out of college. Took the classes, got my CCNA in Nov. '01, right about the time the economy officially turned to shit. I worked making collection calls for Ford until 6-02 when I joined the AF, got a medical discharge 6 months ago, and now I can't find a job anywhere. I know my stuff, I'm a CCNA, but I can't get a job. I do mean anywhere to. I never had a problem getting jobs when I was in high school, but now that I have a diploma, some college, a professional cert., and some life experience, I'm having to dig through the my sofa for change for food or gas.
Now, I'm really not trying to sound like I'm bitching, because I'm not, I'm just recounting my experience. I'm also not saying all those people who told me Cisco was great screwed me, but rather, I think they we're just going with the info they knew to be true. Problem is their info was from '99 or so. Now all the IT jobs I can find open want more experience and skills than I think any human could have, and want to pay them something in line with McWages.
All in all, my whole experience has me actually wondering if IT is even going to be a viable career for long. For some reason, I see it going to something of a plumber type occupation. Very few places have a in-house plumber and only call one when they are need for their specialized skills. With computers becoming easier to use and more stable all the time, I can see IT people no longer needed on a day to day basis and instead delegated to being the IT plumbers. Seriously, have you ever seen one of Apple's XServe's? I don't think it can get much easier than that. Maybe I can be a teacher, seems like I'm always hearing about more of them being needed...
Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
Perhaps the puzzling part of the article (how the dollar and market don't look so bad but unemployment is) can be answered by the negative effects of giving ultra-big business all these "pro-business" concessions via government mandate.
Small and medium size business employ more people than all large companies combined in the US. Yet, every stimulus package from Congress only benefits the big boys who can afford a team of lobbyists and a legal department that dwarfs most law firms.
Where does this leave the real innovators? Its hardly contested that innovation and new markets are usually created by those willing to go at it with a small company and do it or fail trying as opposed to some big-business top-down master plan. In the tech industry you have to fight the legal departments of potential competitors, fight the patent junkies, fight potential adversaries like the massive and powerful content industry, etc before you can even come up with a decent business plan.
Someone somewhere is sitting on a billion dollar idea but its not going to go anywhere because investors fear retribution from unfair competitors. Or perhaps she cannot get enough money to pay for years of IP challenges. In a legal war of attrition its the little guy who loses, and loses badly.
I think we might be seeing a loss of innovation and a loss in small to medium sized businesses. How can these companies compete with sweetheart deals, crony capitalism, and legal tricks?
If this little thesis is correct it would explain why Joe from Winnekta can't find a job, even though the economy isn't as bad as it was in the 80s, why PCs are still ugly and loud beige boxes, and why relatively new tech like cellphones are a better deal and a better product overseas. Or why broadband is so expensive here in the States.
Everytime congress cuts a deal for some business it raises a barrier to entry for small business to walk in and compete. Enough barriers and you've got an economy that isn't moving, but is dependant or more crony capitalism to keep it going. I hope I'm wrong as I'd hate to be here when this all hits critical mass.
Prophetic words from potter George Ohr. What we are seeing is a cycle we are doomed to until we get over this mass consumerist mindset. Sure, you can go to wallyworld and buy tons of crap you couldn't afford before - but for what? I'm willing to bet 70% of everything that comes out of that place ends up in a landfill within three years.
If you look around you'll see some people still doing just fine - or even better than last year. $40,000 cars still sell and automakers are coming out with $100,000 cars. People I know who make high end home entertainment systems are still doing just fine. Why? Because the people who can afford that stuff aren't the ones whose jobs are being shipped overseas.
I hate how this sounds, but it all comes down to values. Not family values but simple common sense values - like spending twice as much on an article that will last five times as long. Like buying something that represents craftsmanship and community instead of a cheap chinese trinket you had to get in order to keep up with the neighbor.
It's everywhere - even on those "home improvment" type shows. Every week I laugh in disgust as Steve Thomas and the boys tell us how great this new styrafoam and plastic POS they are gluing to the front of their project of the month is when compared to the old, outdated plaster and woodwork that it's replacing - never mind it's a hundred fucking years old and just now in need of replacment - this new same-as-ten-thousand-others piece of crap is "just as good"... yeah, right.
You don't have to be a millionaire to buy good shit - you just have to learn to not drive yourself into debt buying truckloads of cheap crap. Until the people of the US can accept this most basic bit of common sense, it's all downhill.
But don't worry... all that infrastructure - the roads, the abandoned factories, the empty offices - will still be here, and all those jobs will come back... in twenty years, when the US economy has finally and completely hit the shitter and the people of the US will once again willingly work 12 hour days in sweatshops for peanuts - producing cheap american trinkets for the up-and-coming EU market and all those freshly minted eurotrash capitalists from the FSU.
IANAE
You got it mostly right. It's easier to look at it the other way: when foreigners want to invest in the US, they need dollars. Thus the demand for dollars increases, and the price level of the dollar will rise. (This is of course in an idealized world where that's the only thing going on at the time--ceteris peribus, as economists would say.) A similar thing happens when people in other countries want to buy American goods and services.
When the "value" (price) of the dollar goes up, it means Americans (who own lots of dollars) can afford to buy more PS2s because it takes fewer dollars to buy a yen than before. Unfortunately, the Japanese can't buy so many, uh, whatever they buy from us because it takes more yen to buy a single dollar. So our imports go up and our exports go down when we have a "strong" (high priced) dollar.
When the factors reverse, we have a weak dollar, and the opposite happens. We export more and import less. (Before you assume this is ideal, think what happens to the prices of consumer goods when competition from overseas is lessened.) As you might guess, the ideal value of the dollar relative to the yen (remember, the dollar might get stronger against the yen but weaker against the euro at the same time) is something the US and Japan might not agree on.
Now, about worker efficiency. Economists have a term for this: productivity. It's not just a buzzword: productivity can be measured in terms of product per man-hour. To find a (somewhat meaningless) national productivity, divide the GDP by the total number of hours worked. For a time in the 90s some economists in the Federal Reserve (which influences the economy, but that's beyond the scope of this post) thought that technology advances were pushing up productivity faster than usual, allowing the "natural rate of growth" of the American economy to increase. (Some even talked about the "end of the [boom-bust] business cycle", in the same way people talked about the "end of history" and other such nonsense.) So instead of aiming to grow GDP at say 3%, they though they could get away with 5%. The result of this was an economy that starting moving faster than the Fed could control it, finally spiraling into a recession. The truth of the matter is there's very little hard data to suggest that overall productivity grew any faster during the last ten years than at any other time in the postwar period.
Finally, consider that there are other major causes for this recession. For example, a collapse in consumer and business confidence. This has been caused partially by the post-9/11 hysteria, fueled by FOX News and color-coded alerts. Also contributing is the government's increasing deficits. Gingrich and his radicals forced Clinton to balance the budget, and that worked great in good times. Now that bad times have hit, the government is going a little crazy with deficit spending--some is good, but it should be targeted spending, not tax cuts to people who already have lots of discretionary income. Government deficits have all sorts of reprecussions in the economy, few of them good. Another cause has been the amount of corporate crime that has recently been revealed (e.g. Enron). Businesses have been getting away with more and more under the last 4 presidents, and it sure doesn't give people confidence to think "my company could be next--where will the food come from if I'm out of work?". So people are saving more, and an economy built on rising amounts of consumer debt is collapsing.
In the long run the current shake-up in the economy is health. That sure isn't comforting to the man on the street, though. If you don't like what's being done about it, remember to vote in 2004. That's the only way you'll get people in power that share your views, whatever they may be, on what should or should not be done for the economy in tough times.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Easier to bully. Cheaper.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Just out of curiosity: Isn't it possible for people like Mr. Klinck to keep salary considerations off the table? If he states something like âoeSalary requirements: Negotiableâ or âoeFlexibleâ or something like that, wouldn't that be a good clue for a future employer that he may very well be happy with the $50K or whatever they have budgeted for the position?
I think this whole "over-qualified" thing is a bit ridiculous when people clearly are willing to take on positions for which they might seem over-qualified. I frankly don't understand what "over-qualified" means. If someone is willing to take on the position and the corresponding salary, then I think the company ought to congratulate themselves on filling the position with someone that has considerable experience. Additionally, that person will probably feel a measure of gratitude for the break and offer back to the company a measure of service and insight to which the company would not otherwise have access.
What am I missing here?
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
You can get relocation right now! I have 18+ years of experience in IT and one company wanted to offer me $8k for relocation. Seriously.
...and just accepted the offer from the small company!
I just accepted a job for a company in another state (where I actually wanted to go!) but they didn't offer relo. Better job though. This company was small. The other one was big. I loathe big companies.
If you're wondering, I've been looking for about a year and a half. For the lat 15 months, things have been deader than King Tut. No more. I'm hearing from people again and getting hits on my resume.
Things are turning around people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Looks like I'll have to go back school again but major in Arts.
At least then I won't be bitter about being overqualified to operate the microphone at the Drive-Thru window...
I'm certain that if American companies were to advertise once $50,000 jobs as now being $20,000, you'd still have people rushing to grab up the jobs.
:P
" According to the IRS, the top 1% of wage earners payed 37.42% of the tax burden while only making 20.81% of earned income. The top 10% payed 67.33% of the tax burde while only making 46.01% of earned income."
That's because those people are very adept at hiding income. Were you paying attention to the enron goings on? Now those guys knew how to hide money. Look at Steven Jobs. His official salary is $1.00 per year. Yes one dollar per year. You really think that's his total income?
War is necrophilia.
The biggest difficulty I can forsee is not the decline in programming jobs, but the decline in skilled careers altogether, because of losses to overseas. The prospect of re-training doesn't bother me so much. But re-train to do what? Accounting? Law? Engineering? DBA work? Manufacturing? Research? All of these careers will move to foreign shores. Graphic Design? Even graphic design is being shipped overseas -- "The Simpsons" is now drawn by people in Thailand for $1/hr!
Nothing remains! I have no idea what skill to acquire. The only career for which there's brisk demand is NURSING. That can't be shipped overseas, not even a portion of it. I have no desire -- NONE -- to be a nurse. I suppose I could sell clothes at the Gap to people who no longer can afford to shop there.
What am I missing here?
You're missing that an over-qualified person typicaly would start looking for a better position quicker than a person who's 'just' qualified. Hireing someone costs money, you need to teach the person how your company works and therefor you want to keep your employers for a long time.
Like with fliping burgers, if you had an engineer and a teenager applying of course the teenager. (S)he is more likely to stay.
Did your dad have credit cards, a hefty 401k and a house to mortgage?
:)
Many out of work people (not just tech geeks) don't have the privilege of soft money.
Actually, if I had the money, I'd probably go back to uni.
In that they have a 99% literacy rate, while the U.S. has 97% (what a joke! As a certified literacy tutor, I can personally attest that the U.S. English literacy rate, including undocumented workers, is closer to 85%.)
They spend 2.1% of their GDP on defense.
Their economy is 69% services, whereas the U.S. economy is 80% services. Which do you think is more robust?
Like $20,000 of consumer debt provides tremendous liquidity to Visa and MasterCard? No way; the national debt is simply a means of passing the buck to the next generation. If the U.S. wasn't selling debt, then that $7 trillion that U.S. common stocks lost since 1999 would likely still be in people's pension and college funds.
It wasn't too long ago that our leaders in the U.S. prided themselves that "the buck stops here." It wasn't too long ago that we had a budget surplus. These days, we have neither.
A good thing for who? Osama bin Laden? Every dollar Uncle Sam pays off the debt is several cents per year saved in interest.
You can say that again. Next time, please try it without the pathetic rationalizations.
Before you start comparing the United States to other 1st world nations you have to ask yourself a few questions to make absolutely sure you have some idea what you are talking about...
A) Have you ever lived outside the United States for longer than one Month?
B) If Yes, Have you ever had to deal with a Non-U.S. Gov for anything important?
C) If Yes, Do you know anyone that was born and raised within this country?
D) If Yes, What does this person think about their system of government/taxation/health care/social services?
If you've answered yes to questions A through C, have a positive response to question D and still think you have a case...then proceed to quote your statistics and post links that support your line of thinking.
HOWEVER, if you are someone that has done nothing but read a few blurbs on random websites about Swedish adventures in bureaucracy, there's a small possibility you have no idea what you're speaking of.
I was born and raised in Southwest Missouri. I also used to complain about the state of America's economy/tax system/foriegn policy...and then i moved to Europe, married a Dutch girl, and had personal experience dealing with European Authorities. After a time, I realized that America may not be perfect, but its loads better than the various ad-hoc systems of europe. Sweden's system may look good on paper, but if you haven't experienced it for yourself, you have no clue what you're talking about.
Belief that Perspectives matter more than Facts = Mark of the Truly Ignorant
1. Real income of white and blue collar workers have been on the decline for several decades, cost of living has been rising.
I think you could live a much better life much cheaper now than ever. I think we spend a lot of money on things such as market brands and expensive apartments, but these are things that aren't really necessary for your survival. Try taking a look at your expenses over a couple of months and see how much of it that actually goes to quite useless things.
2. Capitalism is basically killing it's own customers, since people earn less, they can consume less (otherwise they simply make more debts and creating dangerous bubbles).
The nice thing about capitalism is the balance between demand and supply. As soon as one thing changes the other thing replies by adopting to the change. I don't think the problem is with capitalism but with our current structure of society...
3. Most manufacturing is done by machines these days, only service and administration jobs are the main areas for humans. So most people work in jobs were they can be easily replaced.
4. Job fluctuation has become extreme - compatred to the old "job for life" hardly anyone stays longer then five years in one company. This also dimishes the social fabric in companies, the ties between workers and management are loser, people stick less together.
This is true from one angle. But our social networks are more important than ever. They just don't coincide as much with our current employmment as they did before. In stead of saying "I work for Company X" you might be saying "I belong to network A, B and C. And, oh yeah, currently Company X is paying my salary". I think that's a good thing.
5. Globalisation also means not only the exchange of riches (by creating jobs in these developing countries9, but also sharing poverty (in those "rich countries").
Capitalism is not a zero-sum game, but you are right in that maybe finally the wealth distribution of the world is slowly flattening. I think this is good in the long run. People with a job, a good life and a secure income don't blow themselves up.
6. Protectionism (like US-steel tarifs) just speed up the shift of jobs, since they raise the benefits of outsourcing even higher and create a "false" market that could collapse anytime without more government intervention.
Agree.
7. Business is more and more concentrated, so less companies produce all the goods/services. Obviously less companies need less employees.
Yes, this is true for businesses in the production sector. But as people move up the Maslow ladder of needs their demands changes. In stead of a faster car we want a car that is an extension of our own personalities and that is fun to drive and own. In stead of a bigger burger we want a fun burger served by a clown that can do Bill Clinton impersonations standing on his arms. We're also healthier and live longer. We want a better quality of life, even as we age.
Conclusion 1: people in healthcare will always have things to do. We will never be healthy enough.
Conclusion 2: entertain your customers, no matter what you do.
8. The financial market has developed in a way that it investors make more money, thru short term money business instead of investing long term in companies. This of course doesn't create many jobs ...
9. Since most companies these days are on the stock market, their share values have become more important then the actual core business. Instead on focusing on markets and products, CEO's are forced in a three months rhythm to create value for stockholders - so money gets sucked out of companies and long term projects are hardly tackled.
I agree. And I think one of the solutions to this problem is to l
It's called GATS, the service sector counterpart of GATT. The WTO GATS homepage (see the above link), "recognizes the right of Members to regulate the supply of services in pursuit of their own policy objectives, and does not seek to influence these objectives." But if you think that means your representatives are aiming to save your white collar job, well PT Barnum was probably right. Think about it some more. Which service sector jobs are going to move? The waitress serving coffee at the local diner. The guy standing behind the counter ringing up your gas and soft drink? Your hairdresser? Or the folks writing software? The people handling support calls?
Unfortunately, it does not work that way. Whether we like the idea or not, we have a worldwide economy.
Personally, I would rather give my business to some "underdeveloped" country with a good product than worry about "Buy USA" with the business practices that we have here. Remember, all this outourcing overseas is not being done by foreign companies. The biggest problem was when we decided that corporations had the same rights as people. People are often bound by morality or at least fear of reprisal. We now have corporations that are a mechanism to do things that we as individuals would be outraged or afraid to do ourselves. As long as our investments are getting good returns, we look the other way at what the company is doing. We diversify our portfolios so that the odds of losing are less if one gets caught with their pants down. If they want to do something that is against the laws in one country, they just move that portion offshore.
If you want to boycott somethng, make it a general principle to not deal with companies that do things you disagree with. If you just flock to the company with the best bottom line, you get the likes of Enron and Worldcom. As long as these companies can lobby and otherwise subvert the system they can look good on some ledger (the public one) and make a quick buck, even if it is a scam. Making the executives of the company liable is a good start. It should however go much deeper into all levels of management.
You have two programmers. One is just out of college, and costs you $x per year. One has been working in the industry for fifteen years, and costs you lets say $3x per year.
You give both programmers the same assignment.
Most managers look at stupid metrics like number of lines of code produced, number of bugs fixed, that kind of thing. Younger programmers can crank crap out by the dumptruck, resulting in bugs by the dumptruck. And all that for a lower cost per year. But we all know that the more experienced programmer is the way to go, because he is actually completing more projects -- even though that metric cannot be accurately measured (since you practically never give the same assignment to two separate teams).
Managers hate this kind of reality, because it is impossible to graph on a powerpoint slide. They may not even know it intellectually, because all the metrics they measure are pointing to the wrong conclusion -- but as they do what the metrics encourage them to do, they wonder if there is a better way than having all these kids grinding all these hours producing all this crap.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
You can pitch a prototype of this kick-ass idea and try to get funding for it. Or, you can demo it to prospective employers as proof of your talents. Just make sure that if you do get a job offer, that you take actions to retain the rights to your idea. That's a slippery slope right there.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
By many accounts, we've never had it harder...
Geez, it might not be wonderful right now, but it's not exaclty the Great Depression. Have any of your friends started jumping out of windows? Living in shantytowns? Try to keep just a little perspective.
"A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
I'm pretty sure that I know what you've been going through. I had been out since my last company went under, 16 months ago. I have almost 20 years Engineering experience and didn't get more than tiny nibbles for over a year. Suddenly several things came up in the space of the last 2 months and I start a new job tomorrow. Whew!
I really wonder whether things are turning around (and hope they are), or that it just takes that long (on average) right now. I know several people for whom it has taken 12 to 18 months.
I'm going the opposite direction from you - very small company to very large company. I've worked for small, medium and large companies in the past and found that each has its pluses and minuses. Right now, employment is my priority and I'm glad to have a job and the company looks pretty damned good, to boot.
Anyway, good luck in your new job!
Sigs are bad for your health.
Folks either have really short memories, or else it goes to show the young age of most Slashdot readers, but these same exact complaints about poor ol' unemployable white collar workers were being made in '93,'94 as the U.S. was coming out of another (mild) recession following (another) war with Iraq. The figure of the IBM executive whose COBOL programming skills are no longer valued and has to go to a C++ training class (now it would be Java, I guess) with pimply-faced teenagers has alredy appeared before in Douglas Coupland's "Microserfs" (published in '96, but written around '94/'95). Sure hope Mr. COBOL-programming IBM executive didn't hang himself as the economic misery increased in the late '90's :P . Now where's my day-trading account...
This isn't just about dot-commers. They can generally land on their feet, or at least survive-- frequently they don't have families. The problem I've seen is that 50 yr. old, experienced engineers are being laid off left and right.
I can see that people want that security but that security is a socialist security and goes right against the grain of what the USA was founded for.
Bush & his republican buddies supposedly favor small government but ever since 9/11 some of the largest concentrations of bureaucratic power ever have been taking place. Americans want socialist controls and there are govt bureaucracies that are starting to rival their historic Soviet counterparts..
The US once was a proud nation, over the last decades it won the most massive conflict ever between industrial modes of organisation. State controlled fascism & socialism lost to state guided capitalism. But now americans are afraid of anything, loosing jobs, crime, drugs, foreign whatevers.
People who earn a lot of money usually are positive empowered people who have drive and initiative and yet they have to pay to cater for the ones that might prefer the soviet union over the US?
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
The problem is that many pepople on /. has excellent ideas for how other people's businesses should be run but are too lazy and/or unwilling to take the risk of running their own business.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
I worked for an IT consulting firm during college. We actually went to the client and made sure their systems worked, secured them, and installed new systems. That was very "hands-on" work that could not be done by someone overseas (try having an IT guy in Bangalore replace a failed switch or router).
During my last year in college I handed in most of my programming projects via e-mail. That made me realize that I (or some other low-paid code monkey) could do my job from anywhere on the planet. Any good or service that can travel a wire can easily be "offshored" or outsourced.
After college I got a job as a network administrator for a school. Sure, I was earning 20k/yr less than my "programming friends" but I knew I had a job that could not easily be replaced. If you are looking for job security, get one that REQUIRES client contact. That makes you much harder to replace.
-ted
1. Many of you are complaining that you are putting in 60+ hours at work for low pay. May of you also have ideas on how a business should be run. Why not combine your willingness to put in great number of hours and great business ideas and run your own business?
2. We as consumers put mom and pop stores out of business because it is cheaper to shop at Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. Then why are we suprised that businesses are laying people off for cheaper labor overseas?
3. If we tax the shit out of businesses, won't they encourage them to cut costs by laying more people off?
4. For people who invest, do you not invest with hope that you'll make money off of your investment? Since share holders elect board members who in turn hires CEOs, why are you suprised when CEOs act in the interests of the shareholds?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Having lived the tale so to speak (I'm in the Bay Area, worked for startups and corporations, through boom times and now slacksville):
We as workers need to adapt. Get used to the idea that you will likely not have your job for a lifetime, let alone five years. Get used to the idea that you will not have a sustainable career, either. You might have to totally change gears every ten years, and get into something related but completely different. The days of job security are over. Companies simply don't give a shit about their workers. Many of the benefits enjoyed by previous generations like pensions and unions are now gone, thanks to the largely empty promises of stock options and equity in the company. Yeah, when times are good, those things can be worth something but the people running the companies always gave themselves more anyways. The disparity between the execs and the workers is shocking to behold. And they will ship your job to whatever country is cheaper so they can save a dime. They don't give a crap about us. That's life, that's business, and it sucks, but we gotta eat, so every day I suck it up and go to work but in the back of my head I'm preparing an exit strategy ... just in case.
It sounds harsh, but we all gotta do it. No matter what job you have, no matter how secure you think it is, you gotta pay off your debts, get six months of expenses saved up, and just imagine "what if"... because I've already lived through a layoff where you go to work one day and the next day your out on your ass, a security guard watching you pack up your cube. And you have to learn from this.
I'm saying, in addition to thinking about what you'd do if you lose your job, we all have to think about what else we can do as a career. The reason why recessions are so hard on people is because they think whatever they did at their last job is all they can do. We all have got to come up with other careers to fall back on just in case.
The way I grew up you did what you had to do to keep a roof over your head and put food on the table. It seems like todays generation are a bunch of prissy ass whiners who refuse to do anything that might involve getting their hands dirty or breaking a sweat. No, it's not the job you want....but damnit....it WILL keep a roof over your head and food in the mouths of your family!!!
As a current blue collar man myself (field tech for a cable company) it really pisses me off to drive down the road every day and see literally 20 to 30 job opportunities a day on the sides of buildings or in the store window with no takers. Hell, the manager at the local Circle-K was pulling double shifts beacause he was unable to find any applicants....let alone employees!! It might be a job as head chicken boy at KFC or lead burger flipper at Mickey D's....but it's a job!!! Tighten up that belt, stop buying expensive dinner out and quit buying those geek gadgets that you so cherish until you get back on your feet.
It's pretty sad that we have an unemployment rate at all with all of these open jobs that people would rather collect welfare than take. It's even more sad that we have a government that would take (steal) my hard earned money to give to people that REFUSE to accept one of these many jobs that are available. Learn the meaning of "Ramen Noodles".....then come back and talk to me about a handout.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
Say this to yourself untill it sinks in
NOTHING IS ILLEGAL UNTILL YOU ARE CAUGHT
if what the company wants is cheap abusable labor, they hire young folks who don't know any better, if they get called on this practice they point out some small flaw in the people who they did not hire or say they did not interview well.
Or if they are real jerks like someone I may know they hire to quota and lay off to get things the way they like it.
watch groups and lawsuits often don't work and they sit even worse with future potential employers.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
On the contrary, the suitability index for child rearing is designed to be a big aggregate standard of living measure, with some extra woman's issues mixed in, published every Mothers' Day. This year, Sweden was 1st, and the U.S. was 11th.
No matter how you slice it -- life expectancy (+2.4 years), unemployment (2% less), literacy (from 2% to 14% more, depending on whether you belive U.S. statistics ignoring undocumented workers), median purchasing power ($8,000 more per capita) -- Sweden's standard of living is superior to that of the U.S.
The thing that cracks me up about all of this is the whole statement about "Overqualified folks will look for a new position faster than 'just' qualified folks" Duh! They also get a hell of a lot more done in the short time that they are there!
We are dealing in a corporate America that cannot see past the end of the coming quarter. I make it a habit of hiring the most qualified people that I can, and I don't expect them to stick around for more than two years. As a manager, I would be absolutely stupid not to do that. Most of my projects need to be done within three quarters, because management is usually not around to fund anything longer than that. The "over qualified" folks that I hire have traditionally been professional enough to stick it out to the end of a project. Once a new project starts, I am ok with new heads.
I work in a fortune 100 company as a manager, or more appropriately a technical lead. I am short staffed. The more experience my new hires have, the better off I am. When I look at my career, I have 1) never been unemployed, 2) never finished college, 3) been at Fortune 100 companies for my entire career since 18, 4) I am 33, my shortest tenure at any company has been 4 years, 5)I am usually one of the first to jump ship when things start going south. One thing that I have noticed is that the good people are usually the first to jump on their own terms.
I am also amazed at how my "top 10 best places to work" employer goes out of their way to remind people that this is a "work at will" environment. If you keep telling your folks that they can be terminated at any time, then don't be suprised when the good ones start walking out the door. It is a two way street. The hypocracy of expecting loyalty from employees without the employer offering any security is amazing.
I guess I meant that getting relo is much MUCH harder now than it was a couple years ago. It used to be that even shit jobs like entry level web developer they'd offer relo, a new car, etc. Now you can have several years of experience and be lucky to get a response much less a relo offer.
:)
When I first got laid off a couple years ago I was foolish enough to turn down offers that would have required I move away from my family despite them offering relo etc. Now I'd probably take the same jobs without the relocation help. I've had a couple of short-term jobs in the meantime but nothing tht lasted very long or paid very well. Not enough to climb back out of debt.
I keep waiting for the turn around. I hope you're right that it's coming. I don't have 18 years of experience but I do have enough that I should be able to find something decent!
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
"Be nice to geeks one day, for you may be competing for the same job.