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Programming Jobs Losing Luster in U.S.
alphapartic1e writes "Yahoo! News writes "The U.S. software industry lost 16 percent of its jobs from March 2001 to March 2004, the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute found. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that information technology industries laid off more than 7,000 American workers in the first quarter of 2005. Gartner researchers say most people affiliated with corporate information technology departments will assume "business-facing" roles, focused not so much on gadgets and algorithms but corporate strategy, personnel and financial analysis. "If you're only interested in deep coding and you want to remain in your cubicle all day, there are a shrinking number of jobs for you," said Diane Morello, Gartner vice president of research.""
Unfortunately Gartner has beat you to the punch!
Anything with the name "Gartner" in it automatically has a taint(not the area between a man's genitals and his anus, though that may be an accurate description of Gartner). It's just hard to swallow their credibility. They seem to keep on coming up with research that says, "Offshore everything! oh and by the way, we just happen to have a large offshore consulting division, what a coincidence". If they are a research firm then they should stick to just research, anything else tarnishes their credibility....
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I wouldn't blame the Bush administration on the Bubble Bursting. The Clinton Administration was the one who opened to doors for all this outsourcing. And if you actually looked at the market near Clintons final years the Stock Prices started to fluctuate and many of the Dot COM start to Dot Bomb. But I wouldn't blaim the Clinton Admistration much for their actions also. Because at the time Tech Workers were is so much demmand they needed to open the gates to get the work done. Who you should blame is all the greedy new investors hoping to jump onto the Next big thing. Over and Wrongly Evualiting all the new companies out there. I dont care what you say Pets.com is not a Tech Stock!!!
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There are people as good as or better than you who'll do your job for less.
In my considerable experience with the matter, "as good or better" is almost never a consideration. It is entirely a cost-driven decision.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Some of the lessened market demand can be traced straight back to free software.
Really? Where do you get that from? Empirical evidences shows that one can get very good jobs from large companies if one of those companies sees the quality in your work. How many times have we heard "X lead programmer for large Free Software project was hired by Y large enterprise"? You have nothing to back up your statement except, what you believe to be, a logical argument. There are many factors which can effect the decrease of programmer jobs in America, why pick a reason which has evidence that contradicts your conclusion?
Our problem is not lack of jobs, it's lack of qualified people. I've been in touch with folks in cleveland, chicago and denver and nobody can hire talented folks fast enough to keep up with growing demand \ businesses. It aint quite the late 90s, but demand is up folks.
Very few competent people have *all* of the qualifications that these jobs typically require. The resumes of these people are tossed out by HR for not having every single qualification and all you get passed on to you are applilcations by poseurs. Your sampling technique is flawed and there is no basis for your characterization of the talent pool.
Look, I LIKE open source, but you can't deny it's taken away from some programming jobs.
No, you can't deny that, but you also can't deny that open source has also added programming jobs.
How many PHP coders are out there that wouldn't exist without PHP and Apache? How many people have HP, IBM or Redhat directly hired to work on open source apps, like Eclipse? How many additional programmers have established software companies like Microsoft and Adobe had to hire to ensure that their products are better than the open source alternatives? How many commercial products, like VMware, have popped up directly as a result of Open Source applications?
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Companies need to suck it up. Maybe you would like to have an experienced developer, but the answer to a shortage of talent at that level needn't be whining or outsourcing. The experience threshold seems to be a reaction to the complete hacks hired into IT in the late 90's - by enforcing minimum experience, you reduce your chances of hiring a nitwit. The correction that needs to happen is that companies need to learn to filter and find qualified, inexperienced applicants. Companies aren't willing to invest in entry-level enough to create the mid-level talent that is needed. It's going to get worse before it gets better - I see new grads branching into other careers when they can't find a job, so there's even less new talent coming in.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
And a huge wad of cash you expect to lose.
No, you don't need huge wads of cash to start a business. By starting small and building up you learn and confront problems as you go rather than overinvesting in a flawed concept.
You should not look at some statistic on how many businesses fail and think "the odds are against me". Instead you should ask why they failed and how can you avoid those pitfalls. Then go look at successful startups and find out why they succeeded. It's not a crap shoot, you are in control.
I understand if you have a family to feed and are unmotivated or risk-averse that starting a business is not for you. Fair enough. But this country is the best place in the world for small businesses, so to suggest that starting a business is a bad idea for intelligent, motivated people is FUD. At no other time or place in history has there been so much opportunity for the average individual, take advantage of it!
What most readers of WSJ are woefully ignorant of is that most companies require machinists to own their own tools. Not the multi-hundred thousand dollar CNC machines, but the general everyday measuring instruments, clamps, jigs etc that can add up to $20,000 to $50,000 of tools over a lifetime. When these guys retire, part of their retirement income comes from selling off their tools. When they get laid off, many sell off their tools as well. Just like car mechanics, machinists have a huge investment in their own tools.
So all the guys who know how to do this stuff are retiring, or were laid off when their jobs were offshored. Even if we as a country somehow woke up and paid attention, it will take a decade or two to recover from our current insanity. It is the same with engineering and software development.
As a country, we seem to be taking the Grasshopper approach to life, instead of the Ant approach. We've combined the eat the seed corn along with the naked emperor approach. However, we've also adopted the "why do you hate America so much" mantra when anyone points out the nudity of the emperor.