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Tech Workers in Higher Demand
mjdroner writes "CNN has a story on an employment consulting firm report showing job cuts in the tech sector are down 40 percent." From the article: "Despite the inevitable job-cutting that typically follows mergers, the job market picture for the nation's tech workers is definitely improving. Many job seekers in high-demand fields such as storage systems administration and information security are probably finding themselves in the driver's seat when it comes to negotiating employment terms"
Many consulting and defense firms have been hiring tech workers non-stop for a long time now. Especially in the D.C. Metro area.
FTFA, "Some businesses may in fact regret some of the job cuts they made in recent years, which, in retrospect, may have been too deep. Recent surveys suggest that employers are having an increasingly difficult time finding information technology (IT) workers."
I was laid off in the fall of 2004 because it was determined that the company could outsource our System Admins and Database Admins to a domestic contractor and co-locate to save a couple bucks in the long run. (You can convince any executive to do anything, BTW, if you have a good PowerPoint ROI chart, laser pointer, and $800 suit).
Long story short, the fine print in the contract stated that only 2 major systems would be outsourced (which amounted to about 40% of the total workload), and after everyone was laid off, the contractor says, "Now... You know that we're not going to handle email, NAS, web services, and other misc systems, correct?"
Needless to say, they're now locked into a 5 year multi-million dollar contract, AND have hired back new system admins to replace the layoffs. I'm not bitter... But it still makes me smile anyway... =)
I graduated in Decemeber with a BSCS, and I started looking for a job in mid-March. I live in San Francisco, so I can work anywhere in the Bay Area or Silicon valley. All I did was post my resume on craigslist and monster, and, during a two week period, I received 25 calls and several emails from employers. Some employers even offered to pay me to come in and interview. The job market right now is crazy.
If you are in Silicon Valley, and you know your stuff, $70K should be the lowest salary you should accept as a new college graduate.
Everything is positive ... if you start from a sufficiently negative point of view.
Exactly. Last year companies like IBM and HP were laying off tens of thousands of employees at a time.
Last Friday, the big news was that college graduates were getting offered more money, except CS grads who were offered 0.8% less than last year's CS grads. If wages are going down, then the demand for labor is going down. For all of you without business degrees, that means there are MORE CS grads than there are jobs.
All this media hype over "highly demanded" IT workers is a bunch of bunk. It's all about making the excuse for more cheap H1-B labor.
I agree with you 100%. Since I pay my employees up to 80% of the profit on a project (but minimum wage otherwise), they bust their butts to be more efficient, and reap the benefits. I know a few of them who've earned probably US$500 per hour working hard to finish well before the deadline and leave almost zero punch list activities.
That being said, most geeks don't want to take a risk that they might only make US$12k per year (none of my guys do) in exchange for buying their efficiency and responsibility. I am glad I have so much competition, though, because it only helps my business when the bottom and middle level of IT is met by GOOD consultants. I'll happily accept the upper levels while passing on the projects that don't meet my criteria.
I recently sold my big home and vacation condo to move into a small home (trailer, actually), which freed up huge amounts of money, mortgage income-necessity, and time. I've been thinking of moving to a small town with an airport and buying into a private plane co-op so I can travel as I need to. As I find more work is possible remotely (although I prefer working face-to-face with my clients), this might free up even more time and money for me to spend as I want to.
The idea of working a solid 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year would drive me bonkers, no matter what lifestyle I can pretend I'm living. Glad to hear there are others out there who came to the same realization.
No where did it say hiring increased .
Just less lay offs .
Under those conditions and terms a natonwide job freese could be
in effect at most places, and still some lay offs occuring .
What the trend is typically is to hire more L1, H1-B's ,
and offshore or near shore .
Some countries have setup cruise ships off the coast ,
and this is called near shoring .
Bizarre indeed .
http://www.adtmag.com/article.aspx?id=10959&page=
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"