Techies Migrate in Search of Work

prostoalex writes "Tracing the story of one family where the father is employed in the IT field, the Washington Post discusses the current unemployment in the information technology field. For a good reason - for the first time in 30 years the IT unemployment rate exceeded the national average unemployment rate, implying that you have a better chance of getting a job if your field is something other than IT. The journalist does offer a disclaimer, saying that the term 'IT worker' is applied equally to a top-notch scientist in a research lab, to a dot-com startup billionaire, and to a local HTML guru. Relevant employment statistics also shows that layoffs in the IT field were up 60% in the third quarter of 2004."

Comments

Give me a break

[jimbobborg]

Having read the article in the Post, the guy the story is about is an ex-mechanic who got into IT during the boom. He live in the Midwest (not exactly a hotbed of IT jobs). A perfect analogy would be someone looking for water in the desert. He isn't moving to one of the coasts, so he's kind of stuck. Living in the DC area, there are loads of jobs, but you have to get here. He'd be better off signing up with one of the big contracting firms (EDS, SAIC, etc.) if he's looking.

So get a job in another field

[stratjakt]

Really, there's no demand for people who know how to use a computer. Everyone knows how to use a computer.

I'm tired of reading "poor me! I used to make 100,000 a year because I knew Lotus 1-2-3, and now the only work I can get is data entry for minimum wage" stories.

We all know how it works. The IT industry is rife with deskilling. What is today a marketable skill (I don't know, configuring LANs by hand, for instance) is tomorrow a useless one (autosensing switches and DHCP, etc). New technologies are constantly being created to replace IT workers.

So if you want to stay with the computers, you have to constantly acquire new skills to stay a step ahead. People who think they can just sit back and live the fat life and let their A+ certification take care of them are dead wrong and deserve what they get.

Re:So get a job in another field

[doinky]

Welcome to the Real World:

People have been spouting your brand of nonsense for decades now. The difference (now) is that not only must one retrain constantly to stay in IT, but that one faces the likelihood that one must retrain one's self to work OUTSIDE of IT, since the IT jobs are going away.

If I could pass two lessons on to you, son, it would be:

1. Macroeconomics matters. 2. Don't buy the CS degree nonsense that you "learned how to learn" and that "any good computer scientist can pick up a language in a week". The job market doesn't buy either one of those aphorisms.

A faulty baseline

[WateryGrave]

The late 90's were an aberration that drew many unqualified people into IT. Think paper MCSEs and IT managers that could barely send email. What we are seeing is a deabsorption of these people (e.g. many of them out of work). Watch the allied health (medium skilled) fields do the same thing in a few years.

Re:Come to DC!

[shawn(at)fsu]

I get to pay for Social Security without the hope of getting any, I thought this applied to anyone under 30?

A need for innovation

[Albanach]

Perhaps the downturn in jobs is a consequence of the downturn in IT innovation? Where are the big leaps that in the last two decades have given increasing numbers of people job security? There hasn't been a leap like the wholesale move to GUIs in the early 90s, or the rise and rise of the internet at the end of the 90s and start of this century. Applications have stopped making revolutionary leaps and are today slowly maturing. For those who choose to run Windows, many of us are still running Win2k, a 4 year old OS because it works. I doubt any of us would have chosen to upgrade from Office 2k to office XP, because office 2k does everything we need.

Unless we see something new, IT jobs are going the way of plumbers. Every town will have a few and if a company needs IT support they'll call one out. The rest of the time their computers will just work.

Well many of the people I met in the late 90's...

[DebianDog]

had NO business being in IT in the first place!

They knew what the interweb was and could spell HTML yet, somehow, commanded over 50k a year.

I was glad to see the "people rake" come through and get rid of some of the dead weight.

New Zealand IT Worker Shortage

[NardofDoom]

They're relaxing immigration requirements to deal with it. Knowing is half the battle.

Of course, you have to deal with a complete lack of anything resembling broadband, which is probably why they have the shortage in the first place; no techie wants to move somewhere 256kbps is considered broadband and worth paying $50/month for.

What IT Job Shortage?

[Wicked187]

I do not see a shortage in IT jobs... I see a shortage in qualified IT workers. I would say a large percentage of the unemployed IT workforce are inexperienced and lack some major backing (like a college degree, certification, job experience/internship). I hear from so many people who obvious do not know anything about IT about how this certification sucks because they got it and they cannot find a job, or how they spent a year in an overpriced tech class that was supposed to turn them into an expert. It doesn't help when the unemployment office gives extra money to laid off airline workers if they take some IT classes. The biggest answer to unemployment problems "Hell, send 'em to some IT training, anyone can do it."

Oh well, I have a good job now, and I got it because all of the idiots out there made me look so much better. Hell, the guy that I interviewed with left because he didn't know what he was doing, and now I do his job and mine. Maybe if there were more qualified people, I would have a new coworker... because we are looking, we just cannot find anyone who is competent.

Bush-ism

[Capt_Troy]

"That's why I'm such a big fan of Community College!"

Woo-Hoo, that guy should just go to community college, then he'll be able to find another great job. Isn't it so great when everything is so black and white?

$30 an hour? Whaaaaaaa

[shubert1966]

The guy's making good money, it's his expenses that are killing him. Having to move frquently and accepting a motel as a home is a judgement call and it's blowing 1800 a month.

He should have his 9 year old set up a bank account so he can avoid the check-cashing fee.

If his wife can work they ought to just move back to Warren and he can commute to Akron, Kent, Canton or the Cleveland area. A three bedroom rental at $1000 and suddenly he's saving $700 / month.

The whole economy is too darwinian, future generations can't defend themselves if they haven't been born yet, and today's financial institutions just do whatever Washington will let them get away with. Shareholders VS society at-large. Temporal mindsets suck.

This guy should be happy he's got a wife and kids. Try PLC or truck driving or become an RN. There 'Service Economy' is inescapable - so he should be happy with what he's got. Sorry to be bitter, but I got my own problems, and $30 an hour aint one of 'em.

'There is only so much room in the economy for business owners - leaving the rest of us destined to being someone else's Em-Ploy-Ee.'
~ Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber Manifesto

Re:$30 an hour? Whaaaaaaa

[Tablizer]

My thoughts exactly. You know, there's something like 10 million people living in this country, who risked their lives swimming across river or crawling through scorching desert to come here to earn $6/hour cleaning toilets, while having huge extended families, seem to live happily, and still have plenty of money to send to the relatives back in the homeland. Anybody who can't live off $30/hr - sheesh...

Are you saying we should welcome this new 3rd-world life-style? (Please, no overlord puns.) I'll have my kids practice by walking to school barefoot in the snow. It will be the *reverse* of what we heard:

"In my day my parents drove me to school in a big fat warm SUV. None of this newfangled barefoot stuff."

Re:Mod me down, but it has to be said

[ivan256]

Holy shit, that's one of the darkest posts I've ever read.

I hope thinking like yours doesn't become a trend. We need optimism and ambition, not this pessimistic crap. Life is what you make of it, and there are always more opportunities than there are people. Within reason, what you want is almost always within your reach if you're willing to work hard enough. If we go to hell in a handbasket it's going to be because people who think like you will take us there. Fortunatly I think you're in the vast minority and could probably do with some anti-depressants.

IT: The Only Industry Created to Destroy Itself

[cyngus]

Something dawned on me yesterday. IT is one of the few, if not the only, industry ever created to put its own workers, and the workers of as many other industries as possible, out of a job. That is the purpose of information technology. Kind of sad and kind of neat. IT makes very few truly new products. We create products that do old things a different way (ie. streaming a video over a network, cable or otherwise, so you don't have to go to Blockbuster). So be it.

Re:Save, save, save

[Life2Short]

"Instead of living in an apartment, which in the same area will cost less than renting an entire house, and saving up this family is now crammed in a motel room!"

You're blaming the guy because he chose to rent? Contrary to what many people seem to believe, buying a house is not always a smart financial move. First, I'm glad that you can rent "an entire house" cheaper than you can rent an apartment in your area, but I think you'll find that in many parts of the U.S. that isn't the case. Second, if you're not going to be able to stay in a house for a period of several years before you try to sell it, you can wind up losing quite a bit of money. You have to pay a real estate agent, loan fees, taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities that might be included in rent (e.g. water and garbage), etc. If the selling price of your house hasn't gone up considerably since you bought it, it can be cheaper to rent. Any financial planner can tell you that. If your employment future in the area is murky, you might be better off renting.

Re:I own a small it company

[Jhon]

I make decent money. Not great, but comfortable and enough to keep a roof over my family, put money in a retirement fund, private school for the kids, a "saftey net" savings account and we're getting ready to buy our first home. And this is in LA County with a high cost of living and the AVERAGE house runs about .5 mil.

I have been offered literally triple my salery if I were willing to move/commute over an hour away -- or move to another state all together.

I've turned them down. I've turned them all down. Why? Because I live in an "ok" area. I live about a 20 min WALK from work. My hours are of my own choosing (mostly) and I enjoy a huge amount of freedom with my employer.

I actually get to help RAISE my kids -- not just let my wife or some hired 'day care' raise them. Our children have never seen a 'baby sitter' other than grandma. They've never been picked up from school by anyone other than my wife or myself. You cant pay me enough to give that up.

Re:Come to DC!

[rutledjw]

Wreck? What is it now? It's the best guaranteed loser for investment. Yeah, yeah, I know - Enron. That's why you don't put all your eggs in one basket. So let's see here, why don't _I_ like "Social Security"?

• Average of 1 to 1.5% interest per year (I could do better with CDs even when rates were rock BOTTOM)
• You get benefits at 65
• When you die, there's no remainder to pass along as inheiritance

What are the benefits again?

That being said - I'm all for paying into Social Security to support those who depend on it or have paid into it for decades (and doing so as long as needed). But as a younger worker (30), give me the opportunity to save some of that myself in my own plan. Don't force me to pay into something I don't want and provides virtually ZERO benefit!

Re:hah! insecurity clearance!

[gatkinso]

Well said.

The same is true about the lifestype polygraph. You can be a married father and banging strange men at rest stops on the side with no condom.... but as long as your spouse knows about it there is no problem as far as your employment status...

Blackmail only works on people with something to hide.

Re:Nation Wide Problem

[Tassach]

Prices in my area are very high for very simple things like bread and sandwich meat, That's your problem. Convienience foods are expensive; staple foodstuffs are cheap. If you're on a REALLY tight budget, you can't afford luxuries like that.

Don't buy bread; buy flour, eggs, and yeast and learn to bake your own bread. Don't buy pre-packaged deli meat; buy a big enconomy-size roast, cook it yourself, and slice it up. Don't buy potato chips, buy a big bag of potatos and a gallon of vegatable oil. You get the idea...

Tomatos too expensive? Plant a garden! Even an apartment dweller can raise a significant crop of fresh vegatables in big flowerpots. Go to the library and check out a book on box gardening.

Most importantly, learn how to shop! For example, every supermarket I've ever been in marks down it's meats on the sell-by date. They'll sell it for a few cents on the dollar rather than thowing it out. If you know your store's routine, you can be there waiting when they mark it down. Then, take it straight home and throw it in the freezer. The other thing is to take advantage of coupons and loss leaders! Loss leaders are great if you have the discipline to go in and ONLY buy what's on sale. You may have to go to 3 or 4 stores to get everything you need, but you save a ton of money. Clipping coupons may be a pain in the ass, but it's worth it -- my wife will routinely spend $100 at the grocery store and get $60 of it back in coupons and promotions.