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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.""
The jobs are going overseas, but not in the "there taking are jorbs!" way. Rather, the United States is simple becoming a follower of technology rather than a leader. The real leaders are in Europe and Asia, with Europe leading the way with standardization of services and Asia with cutting edge technology releases.
Americans are very happy living with their one or two generations old technology. They have various excuses as to why it would be impossible to implement standardized systems in the US (size of the country, unregulated bandwidth, etc), but I've yet to meet an American who wasn't impressed by the breadth and depth of technology available overseas that isn't available at home for them.
As an aside, I find that people who think Apple iBook screens acceptable are typically totally unaware of the quality of screens of most other makers. The iBook has one of the worst screens in today's lineup of laptops. But this type of blinder is typical of American technology consumers.
So if you want to make programming your job, look into studying up on your Asian languages.
What type of mental COCKA#@ F%CK DOG%!@# C%NTB%TT A#@A@# disability that will prevent office politics?
two words: tourette's syndrome
Fear trumps hope and ignorance trumps both
The Bush Administration/Republican majority didn't cause the economic downturn, true, but they sure as hell exacerbated it by all that deficit spending and stirring up the Middle-East cauldron, causing petroleum prices to go through the roof.
The economy would have come back so much stronger by now if that stuff (and the consequent weak Dollar) wasn't weighing it down.
But why should Bush care, because by the time the shit really hits the fan he'll be long gone and
it will be the next president's responsibility to clean up the mess. And he'll be a one-term president because everything fell apart on his watch and the short-memoryed American public will make it out to be his fault. That's pretty much what happened with Carter and Bush Sr. Herbert Hoover too, IIRC.