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.""

Comments

Re:I could have told you that back in...

[antifoidulus]

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....

Re:Giving away the store

[youknowmewell]

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?

Lack of over qualified people, you mean

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I call BS

[rkischuk]

I'm gonna call BS on your call, at least in part. Companies have an unrealistic expectation of hiring every single technical employee fully qualified. I get calls all the time for mid to upper level development jobs, and sure, there aren't enough people around to fill those jobs, but that's because few people are looking to hire at entry-level. I've seen dozens of guys just getting out of school, hunting for development jobs with no luck, while many of my friends at other companies are still asking if I know of anyone to fill their mid-level developer position.

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.