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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.""
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Hey! Maybe I should start an IT consulting company. I'll call it the "Smart-Ass Group"!
The short future is projects managed in US but implemented abroad - the far future is too scary to think about at all - they're gonna take all our jobs :(.
Pay girls to strip!
"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."
Actually, if this describes you, and you are creative and business savvy to boot, then you are perfectly suited for starting up your own software business.
is middle management. Everything else can be outsourced.
Entry level positions aren't necessary. Knowlege of how computer systems behave and are operated isn't necessary. Intelligence isn't necessary.
All you have to know is how to play petty office politics and sell people on useless shit. And run an office (either well or poorly.)
What was considered IT back the good old days of the 20th century was information Technology, with the emphasis on Technology. But after attempting to build an economic structure purely on technology we fond out the old rules are still in place and valid, and technology is only one of many tools in the business arsenal. As well the average person is becoming more computer savvy, so jobs like "computer operator" are becoming passé. Now that we have the Technology to enhance information, and it is affordable and easy to use, we now have to Manage our Information Systems to make all this cool stuff actually work right and also fit in the business needs. Sure Video conferencing is cool and all but does it actually help improve profit, No, not really. Or a high end Cisco network for 20 computers, nope that is not profitable either. IT workers are not supposed to be separated from the business that they work for they are part of it and they are being paid to help the company not just worried about tiny technical details. If it takes you twice as long to make a mid size program 50% faster, It would be cheaper to buy a computer that is twice as fast, and run your slower program on that and still have increased speeds. These are the issues business faces. Business don't want people who get loss in the technology they want people who know technology who also know how to use it to improve their business bottom line.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That the remaining jobs are in areas where geeks are typically short in skills.
The good news....
It IS Gartner, meaning there's a damn good chance that analysis is a steaming pile of BS.
I wonder how many of those programming jobs 'lost' were actually promotions to managerial positions, and the vacancies left behind were farmed out?
Then again, in what other industry do those struggling to pay for college or to get through unemployment amuse themselves by giving away the very craft that they think they're going to sell if they're ever employed later? Don't blame it all on outsourcing. Some of the lessened market demand can be traced straight back to free software. You can't give away huge quantities of something that has intrinsic value and expect it not to have an effect on market pricing.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Manufacturing jobs "lost their luster" a long time ago because a combination of many destructive forces converged on blue collar workers. Corporations with loyalties to no one, not even the stockholders, union bosses who wanted blue collar workers to live middle and upper middle class lifestyles, politicians hell-bent on judging their job performance in volume of regulation and prison/quasi-slave labor in countries like China all conspired to destroy those jobs. Now we are simply progressing toward the inevitable destruction of the white collar job market for anyone who isn't a business major in college.
One thing is certain about the job market. If the starry-eyed socialists would stop regulating our economy into the second world, we'd not be losing jobs the way we are. American workers are very expensive to hire, often too expensive to justify. A decent chunk of it is caused by politically correct bullshit like pushing for diversity over qualification, allowing people to sue merely for being offended rather than telling people to deal with it, the constant threat of corporate-to-corporate lawsuits over nothing and things of that nature.
The bottom line is that if you want to actually have a job and a society that produces wealth rather than living off of the wealth of bygone years, you'll vote for the Libertarian Party. The LP is the only party that actually wants to create a regulatory regime that works for everyone. The coin-operated Democrats and Republicans only care about giving back to those who put them in power and don't care about making the system work for the rest of society.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
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.
Some of us really are nerds at heart and strive to learn new "Stuff that matter" ;).
We are trying to hire experienced C/C++ developers in the PDX area, and they are really (really) difficult to find. The truth is, that in 95% of the cases, good software engineers already have a job. Outsourcing might have made the lack of jobs for non experienced developers bigger, even if the level of quality you get from outsourcing is even lower than the one you might have got if you'd have given jobs in USA. In a few words, outsourcing stinks, and we better off importing the 1% of good developers they have oversee, and leave the remaining 99% junk in the wild. You get what you pay for dude, and the company I'm currently working with, is crudely facing this reality.
I've been dealing with (mis)management ass-holes who never seem to get a clue that, when you've planned out a project if you cut the staffing and/or the budget for it, you still get what you pay for (meaning the original projections go out the window.)
Its not rocket science but the way these guys manage, it's more like voodoo (and about as effective as 'gris-gris' in warding off AIDS... NOT!)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I know that there are some good firms overseas that probably can provide a legitimate savings without some of these headaches, but businesses expecting a panacaea may come out the worse for outsourcing. Caveat emptor, YMMV, etc.
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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.
Next month I will have been a programmer for 40 years. This is not the first bust I've seen in programming employment, but I'm not sure this is a cyclical change as much as a structural change. The task cannot continue "as is" in the face of advancing technology. Thirty-five years ago there were predictions of software being written by software, and we're on the verge of a BIG explosion of software. (Just look at all the submissions at Freshmeat.)
However, there is a severe shortage of thinkers. Face it, any moron can write code, even good code, if the design is done well enough. But if 9 out of 10 software projects in the US are cancelled before completion (apparently due to cost overruns and design problems), then there is a tremendous pent-up demand for good, creative design implemented in affordable software! The new possibilities that could be addressed by a multitude of programmers freed from writing accounting reports and database forms could change our world in terrific ways!
Unfortunately, the low education level in the US has produced a bunch of code peasants without the vision to use the tools they now have. These are persons whose main interest is getting a paycheck and going home to the bottle or TV.
It took 40 years for the railroad to substantially change our lives. Same thing, 40 years, for electricity, automobiles and aircraft. Don't cry for buggy-whip code jobs. Those are something we had to get through to get to the chance for jetliner opportunities. Larry Ellison said (back in '96) that computing power had increased a millionfold in the last 20 years, and if it continued like that for another 20 years it would produce a future he couldn't even imagine. Back in '79, when Cincom Systems was building one of the best database managers to run on IBM mainframes, they had presentation that included this one fact: Back in 1940 the telephone companies had all the technology necessary to handle all the telephone calls made in 1979, but it would have taken every man, woman and child older than 14 in New York City to handle the calls! (Anyone else remember the days when you picked up the phone and got an operator? Oh, wait...there are places like that in Argentina and India.) Routine jobs will always be downsized, eliminated or automated, and any job becomes routine with progress. Some researchers are predicting huge unemployment in the unskilled labor market in 25 years. Robotic machinery will handle routine skills like cooking fast food, housework, framing homes, etc., but somebody will have to build and design those machines. I say we have a great opportunity to get there before the Chinese! I say , "Bring on the automated programming!" There is no end to the things I could build if didn't have to hire lazy, unreliable and expensive wetware to do the routine tasks.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Speaking as a hiring manager, and one who has friends in the recruiting profession, the market for tech skills is actually not that bad. It feels like a roughly balanced market--with any edge probably on the side of employers, albeit a slight one.
I say this because I've hired several positions in the last 2 years, and there just aren't that many qualified candidates out there. As the AC said, the good ones are employed, and that is the sign of a healthy, balanced market.
I've personally written the job descriptions to hire my employees in the last 5 years, and I typically separate the years of experience from the skills--seasoning is different from the toolset. And, like most skill lists, the skills are just "desirable qualities," not at all a comprehensive list of mandatory skills. Yet I find few good candidates (on average).
You're right, an HR department can be terrible at throwing away the wheat and giving you the chaff, but I disagree there as well. Since I have friends in the recruiting biz, they have helped me considerably with hiring over the last few years--and they *do* hand over just the bits of wheat they are able to find.
I've even seen very good candidates decline reasonable offers, because they had good offers elsewhere. Again, that's a sign of a healthy (or healthier, at least) job market, and certainly supports the ACs comment that good people are fully employed. They are not only fully employed, but they have options when they switch.
Finally, the recruiters that I know have told me that the last few months have been crazy busy, contrary to typical trends for this time of year. Plus, when year over year comparisons are made, about the last 15-18 months have been far better for them than the prior 15-18 months. And economic recovery does typically hit recruiters early in the game, as they are direct recipients of the benefits of companies feeling flush enough to not only hire but pay a premium for it.
So about 30,000 visas a year? Big deal. I hear they are running out too quickly so the quota needs to be increased. Note that there are laws that regulate H1-B visas. For example, an employee on an H1-B cannot earn less than the prevailing wage in his area. Evidently, continued demand for H1-Bs means the local talent pool is insufficient.
XML UI Browser/Platform
Outsourcing has been going on for years before the Clinton administration. It has simply become more popular because it is more viable with improved communication technology. Bush however, giving tax breaks for outsourcing doesn't help.
e.g.
U SD&to=INR&amt=1&t=5y
http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=
The dollar has lost around 20% of it's value against the Indian Rupee over the last 5 years. Americans are now 20% cheaper to employ compared to Indians than they were 5 years ago.
That trend's going to continue until it isn't worth offshoring anything anymore. In the meantime the US standard of living hasn't changed much. The Indian standard of living has increased substantially, it'll continue increasing and they'll continue getting more expensive.
China is a problem. The problem with China is that they fix their exchange rate to the dollar.
Compare the Chinese chart with the Indian chart:
U SD&to=CNY&amt=1&t=5y
http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=
This is why all the manufacturing has headed to China, guaranteed lower costs, for as long as the exchange rate is fixed.
You say they'll just offshore to the next cheapest country, well it's not that simple, language and education are huge barriers. The Indians have the language thanks to the British Empire and they have the education, it's easy offshoring there. The Chinese have the education but not the language, offshoring service jobs there is far more difficult. Most of the other developing countries have neither.
The key will be to get the Chinese government to allow the Yuan to float on international currency markets. International pressure on China to do this is rising.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
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.
The US standard of living hasn't changed a lot but it will *sometime soon*, and that's because the US consumer (and government for that matter) has been on a massive credit binge. Credit based on equity in their homes primarily. There's a reason that the congress lately passed a law severely limiting bankruptcy for private individuals, and that's because these credit issuers smell it coming, bigtime. it's just math after all..
A lot of people now are so strapped, but still wanting to maintain an illusion of prosperity, that they have no principal mortgages,and are only paying interest in perpetuity on those notes hoping that sometime they can sell out and still make something, and that is only because of the unrealistic bloated housing bubble.
The old expression "eating the seed corn" when starving people ate the seeds they needed for next years crop in thew winter, is also similar to a blue collar tradesman pawning his tools on friday night. Rich for the weekend, come monday he's hurting, then no way to go from there, no work. We've pawned our tools by offshoring still useful jobs. We (the fatcat bosses "we") are in that "rich for the weekend" phase right now. That's our economy, and they keep destroying or transferring wealth producing jobs in exchange for wealth re-arranging jobs.
It is unsustainable in the medium and long term, and it will cause a severe economic crash, especially once the flight from the petrodollar picks up more speed as masses of foreigners realise that they will get stuck with worthless paper IOUs. But the people (high level business leaders and politicians) doing it could care less, they will have gotten theirs ahead of time and probably look forward to being mega-rich in a US reduced to second world nation status, as they can enjoy the lifestyle they now have to travel overseas for, ie, the ultimate power over other humans lifestyle, with all that that entails.
That's my take on it anyway. It's planned to happen this way on purpose.
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?
...blue collar guy. In the past couple of decades and change I lost two factory jobs that got shipped overseas. Swell,did the ole "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" thing and went into construction. Had to keep dropping my bids down to about zilch, as I couldn't compete in the area I was in with illegal aliens living a dozen to a single bedroom apartment basically. Moved, it happened again. Finally it was so stupid to do it I just stopped doing it, couldn't even afford to keep my tools and gear in shape.. Swell, went into the tradeshow business doing display set up, watched the labor pool get filled quickly to beyond what was needed as so many blue collar guys who had lost their regular jobs got into it, then the dotcom bubble burst, knocking out a lot of the big booths and shows. Then I got hurt on the job and went broke as I recuperated over 6 months time.
Swell, now I am a farm worker and am watching NAFTA and GATT destroy agriculture, as farmers try to compete with regions that have about zero environmental laws, etc. They don't put up with that "save the flying three eyed newt so screw you mr. farmer, eat it raw" stuff overseas, in those areas like South America, etc where we have to compete internationally. The only thing that is marginally "saving" ag is the cost of oil is making international transpo more expensive, and that's it. A couple more "free trade" globalisation moves and laws, that's it, all she wrote, buh bye US ag. The multinational agcos are screwing everyone, they don't care,they just want you locked into their seed and packing house and distribution channels, and it don't matter to them if you name is Bubba, Jose, Abdul, N'kummah or Apu, they are equal opportunity screwers. It's near impossible to be an independent now. And it's a catch 22, if the dollar drops, stuff costs more but ag stuff can still sell,but people don't have enough of the dollars to make it worth while, if the dollar goes up, more overall jobs are lost, but what is left can be exported, but the people overseas still won't want anything higher priced than what they can do at home. So that point is moot as well. If the dollar drops oil and energy goes up, which means your cost of productyion goes up past what you can charge realistically, ag is severely energy dependent. And foreign nations don't really want our crap anyway, no GM foods, but that's about all the big agcos are pushing.
You tell me what the fix is because I don't know. I'm competing the best I can, but comes a point you just can't compete with people who can live on 50 bucks a month someplace else. You can't do that in the US. I can re-late to the white collars going through the same thing now, just got many years head start on them, same as millions of other blue collars and I can guarantee you that us guys warned you guys starting years ago it was going to come to you big bucks guys sometime, because the boss class is *the same*, no matter what industry you are in. If you in the US making a middle class salary are replaceable overseas for 1/5th the money or less, they will do it, end of story. Those guys are into it for the short term huge money then get out, they *don't care at all* what happens to you. politicians, globalist business bosses, those guys. what they say and what they do are different, pay attention to only what they do and what happens eventually and you can clearly see it.
In the IT world I have no idea other than to go independent and contract and take any job you can get, bank the loot and/or get out of debt totally as quickly as possible.
Me, I own some solar PV but don't own any big home theater system. We have at least two years of simple food on hand, but I don't go out and blow my cash on movies or entertainments anymore. I can see what's coming and decided on some priorities.
When I grew up I talked to a lot of adults who lived through the great depression. It was bad then but tolerable for people as long as they had the necessities of food/water/shelter, etc. City people really got na
Is it I, or did a great number of "questionable" technology professionals enter the programming field between 1998-2000? Is that not when history majors, Taco Bell workers, and bus drivers thought "programming" had luster and these .bomb companies hired them to developer E-commerce applications? .bomb wave and it makes it tough to filter them out until you interview them. They usually pass the "I did everything" on the resume test. I have faith that "good", creative problem solving programmers are and will always be needed.
My question is, didn't that hurt true computer scientists and information technologists? We have recently be interviewing many candidates to fill some technical positions, finding qualified candidates is difficult because we are still getting those folks that tried to ride the
Whenever a career disappears (literally) over the horizon, it seems to get the label "low level", "repetative", etc. This article does it also. This is often used as a justification to let globalization eat away at the variety of careers available.
How is sitting in meetings all day, placating paranoid CEO's, and playing office politics "higher level" than figuring out how to get Oracle to join 5 tables and 2 million records before the nightly batch job deadline is up?
We already traded "boring, low-level" factory jobs for the highly skilled and highly rewarding cashier jobs at Burger King and Walmart. They are just bending language so that they can get away with doing the same thing to tech careers without the guilt.
Table-ized A.I.