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More Than 500,000 High Tech Jobs Lost in 2002
stoolpigeon writes: "A study, released today by the AeA, shows that the U.S. high-tech industry lost 540,000 jobs in 2002, dropping from 6.5 million to 6.0 million. However, a preliminary look at data for 2003 shows that the decline in high-tech employment has slowed considerably this year."
Another article on it at The Register.
The government has been announcing both an increase in total jobs and a decrease in unemployment filings for a few months now. Neither necessarily precludes a reduction in high-tech jobs. The spin-meisters claim the economy is improving, just not for us.
The problem with getting a honest accounting of the state of our economy is that there is no measure which is not inherently politicized. It is very easy to consider/ignore factors to bolster your numbers. That fact itself has become highly politicized, as Paul Krugman of the New York Times (watch as my liberal bias comes out) has reported recently.
It's difficult to say. Recent figures indicate that the real GDP, consumer income, and corporate profits all rose inq3 2003, but at the same time, the dollar is falling to new lows against other major currencies, which will eventually make it difficult to attract the foreign investing the US needs to balance the trade deficit.
Take a look at this very recent article. This article points out that American IT management is way over-priced compared to Indian management, and hence management will be the next thing to go off shore. As it says in the article, this is American IT self destructing.
Well, you certainly won't get an accurate accounting here.
But I can tell you that the unemployment rate only considers people who are working, or actively looking for work as the total population. So if a former software engineer goes back to school, he/she is no longer considered 'unemployed'. Similarly, if you set yourself up as a consultant, you're also no longer unemployed, even if you're not making any money at it.