Unemployment Hits New High In Silicon Valley

Though there may be some degree of cushion for IT workers in the US generally, Slatterz writes "The steadily climbing unemployment rate in Silicon Valley has reached a shocking four-year high of 6.6 per cent. Recent statistics indicate that the percentage of unemployed workers in the sunny state of California has increased to 7.7 in August — up from 7.4 per cent in July. Jeffrey Lindsay of Bernstein Research explained that a number of Internet firms were chronically overstaffed."

Comments

simple solution

[jacquesm]

move to India ;)

Re:simple solution

[larry bagina]

good call. Good curry, lots of women (most of them put out for Americans, no game required ), and plenty of opportunity for high level jobs in their outsourcing industry. Plus, with the lax laws and easy access to grade-A Afghanistan opium, the place is wilder than Las Vegas. I spent 6 months there, partying like a rock star nightly.

Re:simple solution

[electrictroy]

Instead of India, why not move to the Northeast U.S. or Maritime Canada? Lots of open jobs here. Companies will hire almost anybody.

(For now anyway; who knows how the recession will affect the future.)

Re:simple solution

[Bob Uhl]

Instead of India, why not move to the Northeast U.S. or Maritime Canada?

Because then one's in New England or Canada? New England is the land of atrocious accents, cranky people and the nanny state. Canada is the land of the nanny state (nice & polite people, though).

Granted, either's still more familiar than India. But blech. Give me the West any day.

Re:simple solution

[bishiraver]

If you had to deal with people from the rest of the country constantly calling you an asshole, cranky, etc -- you might be an asshole and cranky to them too!

In all seriousness, have you spent that much time in NE? I mean, NYC isn't nearly that bad. Just don't stare like a bugeyed idiot at the hot women on the train, keep a safe distance from the homeless guy (passed out? maybe. He could be a zombie.) curled up on the sidewalk next to grand central station, and whatever you do - watch where you're going, don't stop in the middle of the sidewalk to look at your subway map, and walk at a decent pace.

I find that if you're generally polite (southern background, here), most people will ignore you. The only times I've experienced native NY'ers being rude was when it's been my fault. And sometimes it ends up funny:

Crossing the street with the signal, a guy in a truck trying to turn against the stream of pedestrians crossing 8th Avenue (at 18th street) laid on his horn. For a good five seconds. Leaned out his window, and asked if we could walk any slower. I just looked up from my triple skinny latte (just kidding.. it was hot cocoa), smiled, and said cheerfully, "Sure!" He laid on his horn, got angry, and then got a ticket for blocking the box once the light turned.

What goes around comes around, and when you live in a city as densely packed as NYC -- it tends to come around a lot faster than other places.

True that about the nanny state. I'm embarassed for a lot of New Yorkers for producing politicians like Ghouliani and Billary. Good thing there's a decent job market and good entertainment, here!

And so what if it's chilly here in the winter? Put on a freakin' coat. It's not going to kill you to wear something other than a tshirt.

Rather that than the bland dry heat of Cali.. at least the weather changes, here. And doesn't dry out my sinuses and make my nose bleed.

Hmmm ...

[oldspewey]

Guess I better stop reading /. and get to work.

The article is wrong!

[paniq]

These people are not unemployed, they are working at home, preparing Web 3.0!

Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[Chrisq]

How many people have become unemployed and then taken a job at 2/3 of the salary? How many people would like to be employed but not registered as unemployed (e.g. wife/husband still has job)?

How many people put up with crap they'd normally resign over, because of the state of the jobs market. In my experience when unemployment is over 4 or 5% this affects 10 to 15% of the employed too.

Re:Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[Shivetya]

Let us ask other questions.

How many are too afraid to take on a new job because they feel they might not measure up?

How many are too lazy to learn new skills because it might be hard, get in the way of WOW, or posting on boards?

How many people would not take a lower paying job because it bruises their ego?

Really, if you don't have a job ANY job is better. I worked at a grocery store for a stint while going to classes at night... at one time I held down two jobs costing me 12 to 14 hours of my day to stay ahead. Guess what, those working only 40 hours a day won't get anywhere. I could school work in those over 40 hours.

There are a lot of jobs out there. If you go through life in your 9 to 5 relying on things never changing you will get stung. When the job you had is lost it can be blamed on the economy many times, however not being able to get a new one rest on yourself more than not.

Re:Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[hal2814]

"Guess what, those working only 40 hours a day won't get anywhere."

Crap, I only work about 9 hours per day. I need to step it up.

Re:Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess what, those working only 40 hours a day won't get anywhere.

I usually try to work less in a day than there are hours in a day. Your time compression powers amaze me! Do you have a newsletter?

Re:Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[R2.0]

"How many people would like to be employed but not registered as unemployed (e.g. wife/husband still has job)?"

Actually, unemployment statistics are derived from surveys, NOT from claims at the unemployment office. Those numbers are reporte4d as "new jobless claims" or somesuch. The survey method is more accurate in one sense - there are people who meet the definition of "unemployed" that do not get unemployment benefits (fired for cause, etc.)

One of the criticisms, however, is that you only count as unemployed if you report that you are still actively looking for a job. Critics contend that this under-represents unemployment figures, since at a certain point people "give up" searching for a job or go to work at McDonalds or something. OTOH, there ARE people who drop in and out of the employment market, women of childbearing age especially. Is it really a fair picture of the job market to count as unemployed a woman who decides to take a year off to have a baby?

Re:Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[COMON$]

I beg to differ sir. If you think that you have to work more than 40 hours a day to get anywhere you are dead wrong. It isnt the hours in a day, it is the quality of the hours. I pride myself in the fact that I have gotten good enough at my job to where I can get quality work done in half the time of IT workers in the same field. I am not in the practice of putting in hours just to put in hours. I actually HAVE a life outside work, so if I want to work a 6 hour day, I go home. This is IT, I will pull a 10 hour day here and there and the administration knows it. I am compensated well, get fantastic reviews, and did I mention that I have improved my salary by 26% in the last 18 months not counting bonuses? Oh and I am working on cooler technology, at a much higher level, and work about 15% less than other jobs.

Getting ahead has nothing to do with pulling consistent 10 hour days. It has to do with putting out quality work.

Re:Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

"Guess what, those working only 40 hours a day won't get anywhere."

Apart from the obvious mistake, this depends quite a lot on where you are going.

If you want to pursue a career, no matter what, working as much as you can until you either burn out or get succesfull your strategy might work.

If you want to pursue a balanced life, with time for a family, hobbies, and a general relaxed attitude, taking it easy might be the way.

It helps if you don't care about your neighbours bank balance or the size of his SUV and house, though.

Re:Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[lysergic.acid]

how many people still hold management positions?

i know a lot of people think of the poor and unemployed as lazy freeloaders whereas the rich and "industrious" are the true producers of our society. however, in my experience most poor people are very hardworking whereas many of the richest and most highly-paid individuals are simply overprivileged social parasites.

of course, i'm not talking about skilled professionals like doctors, scientists, etc. but rather people who contribute nothing to society and are just good at making money or climbing the corporate ladder. these are usually MBAs and upper-management types whose main job is to push the real producers in a company to gain the maximum return for minimal compensation.

best case scenario is that they don't mismanage the company too badly and just allow the workforce to do their jobs unimpeded. if they can manage that then they're given credit for the work done by the people they manage. if they fuck up then they just blame their subordinates and lay off a bunch of workers so that they can continue to get paid for doing nothing.

i would say sales and marketing/advertising are similarly overvalued. but at least they're a necessary evil in a capitalist society. a sales team can make or break a company regardless of the product/service they're selling. but they are still given preferential status over workers that actually produce the company's core product. if a company starts losing money due to a lack of sales, then the engineering department is still the first to go while the sales team continue to receive posh salaries.

Re:Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[morgan_greywolf]

Guilds are more like trade assocations, with each member being more or less self-employed, while unions are organized groups of employees.

Similar, but not the same. Unions aren't likely to work for IT because they are based on the idea that any two workers are interchangeable. This is most certainly not the case in IT.

Re:Unemployment is only the thin end of the wedge

[infinite9]

Guess what, those working only 40 hours a week won't get anywhere.... in their current job.

If you tolerate being treated like crap, you'll be treated like crap. Public corporations by definition have a fiduciary responsibility to squeeze as much productivity from their employees as possible at the expense of everything else including morals and ethics.

Australia sucks too

[CuteSteveJobs]

Employers are being very picky - they demand an exact skills match. They demand you are already familiar with the exact software package you are using. They're no longer willing to retrain even for permanent roles, or even let you read the manual. It's getting specialized, and IMHO the specialization has got ridiculous. It's no longer enough to be a C++ Programmer for example, if they're hiring a C++ Programmer for Embedded Systems. They can afford to be that fussy. A lot of tech that was popular a few years ago has died out. Don't waste time applying for jobs unless your resume is a perfect match. Instead think about taking some time off to retrain. Java is still in demand for example. Or start your own company. Or switch to something else. IT is fun, I guess, but if you want to make money there are much more lucrative businesses.

Re:Australia sucks too

[Shados]

I remember in 2006 an ad for a senior .NET developer job... The catch is, that ad was obviously written by HR, not IT...so they used their canned senior developer ad...

Senior developer often means 6-8 years experience. So they asked for someone with 6-8 years experience with the .NET framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005.

Think about it for a sec. in 2006, 6-8 years experience with VS2005... whoops much? .NET in general came out in 2002, so even if someone used the beta 1-2 years before general release, worked at Microsoft or something, you could at best brush the requirement at 6 year... 8 year was plain and simple impossible.

Funny stuff.

Re:Australia sucks too

[MadShark]

Your average C++ programmer from the non-embedded world will likely be missing a set of skills that are necessary for a lot of embedded work. For example, do they know how to use a oscilloscope? A logic analyzer? A voltmeter? Arbitrary waveform generator? Emulators? Protocol analyzer? Are they used to working on devices that might only have a few K of RAM or even ROM? They could be a good fit if you need someone working on application level stuff, rather than bringing up the low level hardware. It all depends on exactly what the work involves and if the company is willing to allow someone to learn as they go, or if they need someone to hit the ground running.

Re:Australia sucks too

[TheLink]

No surprise a lot end up hiring:
a) liars
b) people who can barely read.
c) people who don't care

They're selecting against people who can read, actually care and prefer not to work in a company where the incompetence is clearly showing.

Re:Australia sucks too

[Shados]

Yup, exactly. I've unfortunately end up in companies like that a few times (consultant and all, I've seen everything). Its clear that liars catch a lot of jobs like that... its just too easy to say "I've worked in .NET since 1999!" and have HR eat it up. Then when the interview process moves on to you talking to the architect or project manager, THEN you tell the truth (prettied up). At that point you basically don't have competition, and its very easy to snatch the job.

Its so sad, I am down to telling all potential employers that I will stay a consultant and never end up on their payroll if I am not part of the hiring process (for software development), because otherwise I end up having to work with a bunch of lying idiots, and that is unaccessible.

Recession vs depression

[mcgrew]

Will Rogers famously said some time in the 1930s during the Great Depression, "A recession is when you neighbor's out of work. A depression is when you're out of work!"

To all of you in Silicon Valley: I hope it's just a recession.

Re:Recession vs depression

[Notquitecajun]

Better yet, it's similar to what we saw in 2000 - it's a correction. When a certain section of the economy is artifically inflated - such as real estate, particularly in CA and FL - it has to come back down to an honest market. Everything will shake out as it ALWAYS has - even right after the Great Depression, which gets more and more overrated as the years go by (though our industrialization and new training occurred due to a war there that helped lead to recovery, particularly afterward). Some people will lose out, some people will win out, but also compare this - we're dealing with LESS than double-digit unemployment.

Remember, the media ALWAYS over-hypes how good and how bad things really are.

Re:Recession vs depression

[antifoidulus]

And yet for the most part, the market was allowed to correct in 2000/2001. For starters, esp. after Bush came in office, he didn't have very many friends in Silicon Valley, so he couldn't give 2 shits if businesses there failed. Although /. readers probably suffered disproportionately compared to the general population in that downturn, it was natural and necessary. However, this time allowing those morons who made bad investments(at the corps and at the individual level) to suffer is really what this country needs, and yet because its an election and because large amounts of morons failed and because the CEOs in this case are much more buddy-buddy with the politicians, they will not allow what needs to happen to happen.

The repubs want to pay the same morons who got themselves into this mess $17k/hr of government money, because heaven forbid someone who is rich actually have to take responsibility for anything bad.

If the government is honestly concerned about the credit markets seizing up, then just go offer the money directly. Increase student loan limits(and decrease rates), set up more small business loans, esp. businesses who will invest in R&D in things like alternative energy. Let morons suffer for being morons. Rewarding greedy morons defies EVERYTHING the United States once stood for.

Re:Recession vs depression

[complete loony]

The financial problems of 1990 and 2000 were just small corrections. In the long term none of them had any impact on the level of debt in the economy.

There is a very big reason why the current financial crisis is worse than anything anyone remembers. The last 50 years of living beyond our means is finally catching up to us. There simply isn't any more available credit, we've spent it all.

Any attempt at a financial rescue that does nothing to reduce debt, is no rescue at all. The only long term way out of this mess is to reduce debt. First we have to cut our spending till it's less than our income so we have something left to pay down our debt. But even this has a huge cost. Last year 4.5 trillion dollars of the US's 14 trillion dollar GDP was funded by increasing private debt. Stop that growth of debt and overnight 30% of the economy disappears.

The band has stopped playing, the music has stopped, but there's nowhere to sit down because we sold all the chairs when we thought we didn't need them.

Re:Recession vs depression

[mi]

The repubs want to pay the same morons who got themselves into this mess $17k/hr of government money, because heaven forbid someone who is rich actually have to take responsibility for anything bad.

I don't know, who the "repubs" want to pay, but the Democrats' intentions are certainly "less than honorable". Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama are the two-highest beneficiaries of the Fannie and Freddie lobbying efforts — despite the vast accounting irregularities of both monsters.

If you are looking for "morons", they aren't on Wall Street. Some of those people may be arrogant assholes, but "morons" they aren't. The morons are people, who bought houses they had no way of affording without reading the fine print. It is impossible for any democrat (and I don't mean the political party here, but anybody associating with the Demos rather than Optimates) to blame the "ordinary people", so they blame the bankers and mortgage brokers to help unqualified people get mortgages. That the "victims" who got the mortgages are morons is not explicitly stated...

The vicious irony of it all is that Fannie and Freddi were both created for the same purpose — to give mortgages to people, who were otherwise unqualified to receive them. But that was a Democratic effort (New Deal — woo-hoo!), and we can't blame them in the newspapers, can we?

Re:Recession vs depression

[John Jamieson]

You said.
"Everything will shake out as it ALWAYS has - even right after the Great Depression, which gets more and more overrated as the years go by"

I would argue the opposite. We seem to minimize the great depression.
1. In all the charts for stock market performance, I NEVER see one that goes back to 1929. Hmmm
2. If you are talking about corrections, you cannot say "everything will shake out... even right after the great depression".
First, the correction was the 1929 stock market crash. Second, everything did not shake out, there were people who lived with hunger and poverty for 10+ years.
Third, many people lost everything. My grandfather lost about $250,000 when the financial institutions collapsed. He never recovered a cent.
Forth, it may have taken another decade to overcome if it hadn't been for the horrible war.

You KNOW the great depression was a CATASTROPHIC event. How can you tell? Look at the effect it had on the people who lived through it. They still waste NOTHING, and have a hard time throwing things out. Anything that has that effect on people 70 years later is serious.

Re:One question

[jacquesm]

good point, quality is pretty high there.

I don't know why I rated an 'offtopic', I'm deadly serious. The weather is better, cost of life is much lower and there is plenty of opportunity to be employed in the IT field, especially as go-between.

Standard of living cost

[BlowHole666]

Well the standard of living cost so much in CA. Why not employ someone who lives in say Texas for $65,000 a year. Rather then pay for someone who lives in CA for $85,000 just so they can afford their standard of living. Who knows maybe everyone can start flipping houses and sell a 1,000 sqft house for 1 million and change.... Oh wait that market crashed too.

youre basically saying aussie employers are stupid

[unity100]

there was an ad once, in a major turkish newspaper for a mechanical engineer.

They required that the applicant should have a BS, MS in mechanical engineering in an obscure field, that the applicant knew excellent Russian, English, Turkish and Arabic, s/he didnt have any issues with traveling and the list went on.

The only thing missing in requirements was an astronaut certification.

The ad became famous.

Re:One question

[oldspewey]

The weather is better

That one is arguable, depending on personal preference and depending which Indian city we are talking about ... four straight months of 38C with 90% humidity isn't everybody's idea of fun.

And there are other lifestyle challenges in India that are not to be entered into lightly by the average westerner.

Not to worry

[Anonymous Coward]

IT workers are cushioned from the US economic downturn.

Re:no wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a choice we all have to make eventually: live where there is lots of money and employment prospects are good, or move away from the Neverland Ranch for the sake of our children.

Dot-com bubble burst?

[digitaldc]

Wait a minute, didn't this happen already in 2001?

My advice: learn how to fail on Wall Street and ensure a massive golden parachute for yourself

IT Workers Cushioned From US Economic Downturn

[jstott]

But I thought that IT Workers Cushioned From US Economic Downturn. I mean, I read it on Slashdot just a few days ago!

-JS

Re:IT Workers Cushioned From US Economic Downturn

[Lord Ender]

This article doesn't say that SV IT workers are experiencing high unemployment. It says that the region has high unemployment.

Hopefully, the mortgage hustlers are the ones out of jobs, instead of the people who actually do productive work.

Re:One question

[n1ckml007]

Any one run into "delhi belly" when your were over there?

Re:Move to Chicago

[BVis]

There's no shortage of IT workers. There's a shortage of IT workers able/willing to work for the salaries/benefits companies are offering.

I wonder how many workers in the Valley are unemployed because of the incompetence of said recruiters? I think it's quite possible that there's jobs out there that are a match with an unemployed worker, but the recruiters (who you have to deal with if you want a job) are too stupid/ignorant/incompetent/lazy to do their jobs properly.

No problem, time to finish my Exchange killer!!

[LibertineR]

Unemployment means time, baby!

I just know, that with enough free time, I will be the one to take down Exchange Server! That's right, ME! I can DO it!.

First, I'm going to toss out all that stuff that nobody uses, because essentially, we are talking EMAIL here, right?

And now that I am unemployed, I don't have to waste my weed money on CalTrain, bitches!

Interesting.

[rindeee]

This is an interesting problem that I've seen repeated almost every place I've been (caveat: I'm a contractor). Businesses often take the approach that if IT's broken, it must be due to a lack of staffing either in skills or numbers. In reality, often IT is broken due to a lack of decision making prowess in upper management. IT is treated as a toy box and milestones and scope are like melting jell-o in terms of their definition and stability. Not getting the result you personally want out of IT? No problem, hire the next guy through the door that talks a good talk. In the end, IT is the one area that suffers the greatest harm due to 'too many cooks in the kitchen' and as such, 'this'. I hate to say it, but IT needs to bleed a little bit if order is to return.

Re:Interesting.

[sheldon]

I would tend to agree, that the main problem that IT suffers from is management.

I don't know how it is at other companies, but the last few places I have worked IT managers generally have been technology guys who didn't understand technology and decided to get into management. Few of them were at all interested in actual management. They weren't attending MBA classes, they weren't reading books on management. They just saw a big paycheck and that's it.

More often then not these managers have not only been bad at making technology decisions, but worse they don't know how to manage people.

The end result has been IT staff who have no priorities, no guidance, and no ability to make a final decision. So projects wonder along endlessly. Not to mention destroyed morale.

110.10011 per 1100100

[davidwr]

"The steadily climbing unemployment rate in Silicon Valley has reached a shocking four-year high of 6.6 per cent. Recent statistics indicate that the percentage of unemployed workers in the sunny state of California has increased to 7.7 in August -- up from 7.4 per cent in July.

The steadily climbing unemployment rate in Silicon Valley has reached a shocking 100-year high of 110.10011 per 1100100. Recent statistics indicate that the per1100100age of unemployed workers in the sunny state of California has increased to 111.10110 in August -- up from 111.01101 per 1100100 in July.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Move to Chicago

[r3b00tm0nk3y]

Dear Mr Coward,

We still haven't heard back from you regarding the position we contacted you about a week or so ago.
We are looking for people post unsubstantiated claims, anonymously to popular web sites.

Please respond as there is a shortage of qualified workers,

Recruiter

Capitalism is dying, netcraft confirms, news at 11

[Project2501a]

Let us ask other questions.

yes, lets

How many are too afraid to take on a new job because they feel they might not measure up?

How many do not have the financial means to get training to get that jobs? have you seen those cisco training courses? bat crazy money

I would like to ask you what makes you think that *everybody* can work like that? or should work like that? what kind of attitude is that towards the 40-hour week? there was blood on the streets to win those 40 hours and now you're implying that we should go back to working day and night? I thought i worked to make a living, and not the other way around.

How many are too lazy to learn new skills because it might be hard, get in the way of WOW, or posting on boards?

How many are not willing to put in to learn new skills because they'd rather put their time towards raising their children or going out on a date or staying home with their girlfriend and oiling her hair/giving her a backrub?

maybe not everybody is lazy

Guess what, those working only 40 hours a day won't get anywhere.

not everybody has the same physical/psychological strength to work those hours. and by work i mean both make a living and learn something new. if you can do it, more kudos to you. why are you berating those who cannot? or will not? why are you creating a hypothetical social/work scale where everybody has to measure the size of their dick compared to yours?

furthermore, where are we supposed to go? wtf? is there a "destination" planned? cuz i didn't get the memo.

There are a lot of jobs out there. If you go through life in your 9 to 5 relying on things never changing you will get stung. When the job you had is lost it can be blamed on the economy many times, however not being able to get a new one rest on yourself more than not.

the idea of changing 4801840938 jobs in a lifetime may not be comforting to everybody for reasons of personal priorities and/or preference. i hate looking for a new job. it's draining me, psychologically. Life is not a dick measuring competition, again.

It's only in Western Capitalism that the idea of financial insecurity and instability pushing people into staying with there jobs

insert marxist rant here, but still, please get off your high horse. not everybody subscribes to the protestant ethic

Shocking high

[antivoid]

"Shocking high" ??? The world's average is 30%, and where i live, its 25%.

Re:Shocking high

[zolaar]

The world's average is 30%

Inaccurate.

According to this site the average unemployment rate world-wide is 13.5%. The site cites the CIA World Factbook as its source.

Perhaps the 30% you were referring to is the statistic of combined unemployment and underemployment rate of many non-industrialized nations (found here) ?

In that case: apples and oranges, friend.

Check out the U6

[plopez]

Now at 10.7 pct for August. Counts part-timers looking for full-time work, the discouraged etc. at 10.7 for the US.

I couldn't find numbers for silly valley, but my gut feeling is that it is above the national average there.

Re:Check out the U6

[Sponge Bath]

Wish I had mod points for this.

There is the widely reported unemployment number (5-6%) which does not include all of the unemployed. Then there is the real (but rarely unreported) unemployment number which is now in the double digits. This is from the BLS, not some made up partisan blog.

link for the U6

[plopez]

here's the link for the U6

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab12.htm

should have posted it to begin with.

Re:Move to Chicago

[Ukab the Great]

There's a shortage of people who have ten years of experience in technologies that have been around for only five years.

Re:One question

[dintech]

With a nick like 'oldspewey', I'm not really surprised. :)

Re:Move to Chicago

[Lord Ender]

There's a good reason.

Recruiters ask for impossible qualifications, such as 10 years experience with some technology that has only been around for eight, plus five years of experience in some completely unrelated product that not many people use, anyway. The set of people who have even used both products is vanishingly small, and the people who have the required years of experience simply do not exist.

So the only people who respond to the job advert are incompetent liars. Recruiters bring the liars to you, and you realize they are fools. So the recruiters decide to UP the requirements for the position to try to filter out the fools. Of course, this just makes it WORSE as they list even more impossible qualifications.

If you want to hire competent people, don't make impossible skills and unlikely experience combinations a requirement.

Re:Move to Chicago

[IMightB]

I completely agree, most of the people that recruiters send to us are utter incompetents... I read a few more of the children before I replied to this one...

To put this in a way that slasdotters can understand. It's trying to hire an auto-mechanic, the people that the auto-recruiters are sending you barely understand how an engine works, they get the concept of: exploshuns and pistons. (Therefore they feel qualified for the job) But they don't get things like the differences between a 2-stroke, 4-stroke and/or a diesel, and they sure as hell don't have an understanding on how the electrical, fuel, cooling, etc etc... systems work together to make the car go forward.

interview ?

[unity100]

java scares me

Re:Move to Chicago

[IMightB]

I know it's bad form, but I just have to add one more sentence to this...

I completely agree, most of the people that recruiters send to us are utter incompetents... I read a few more of the children before I replied to this one...

To put this in a way that slasdotters can understand. It's trying to hire an auto-mechanic, the people that the auto-recruiters are sending you barely understand how an engine works, they get the concept of: exploshuns and pistons. (Therefore they feel qualified for the job) But they don't get things like the differences between a 2-stroke, 4-stroke and/or a diesel, and they sure as hell don't have an understanding on how the electrical, fuel, cooling, etc etc... systems work together to make the car go forward.

Nor do they understand that problems in one of the systems can/may cause a different system to show the symptoms.

Re:Capitalism is dying, netcraft confirms, news at

[fredrated]

What, because someone doesn't want to work themselves to death they must be living off your teat? What an ass.

By the way, parent didn't make a marxist rant, they said 'insert marxist rant here', perhaps you should read more slowly. Also, I don't owe you a living just because you can't read accurately.

Re:One question

[Nadaka]

Sounds just like Mississippi.

Re:Capitalism is dying, netcraft confirms, news at

[tungstencoil]

Well put!

If you choose not to subscribe to a particular work ethic (or any 'ethic', for that matter), good for you... but be prepared for the consequences.

I didn't like my job, and realized it would go nowhere, so I went back to school and got a new degree in a new field. I then shucked my high-paying job for an entry-level software engineering position... and worked my way back up.

I took the consequences. I worked the long hours with school. It was my choice.

If you choose not to do that, that's fine. If you want to spend your time rearing children (or whatever) instead of learning new skills, more power to you. Just be prepared to accept consequences.

For the overwhelming majority of people, life is about a series of compromises. What is so wrong with that?

Re:Capitalism is dying, netcraft confirms, news at

[WDot]

You may be a troll, but I'll reply anyway.

My dad was a workaholic and he went "far" in his job, moving up the ranks and earning a six figure salary. How did he achieve it? He spent his nights at home writing memos and reports. He was never more than an arm's length away from a laptop with his email client up. His cell phone was ringing constantly--dinner, nights, family time, no event was so important that he had to turn off the cell phone. He would have been a hero in your eyes.

What was the result, however? He became grossly overweight, sick often, irritable, and in the end he ran off with some tart who was apparently okay with his lifestyle (or perhaps it was his money).

I'm not writing this to complain about bad fortune or whatever (I'm doing fine currently), I'm just writing this to show why I'm going to be lazy, at least according to your definition (working 40hrs a week). Like hell I'm going to work myself to death simply to enrich my employers.

In fact, I've been researching inexpensive housing and increasing living efficiency so that I can thrive when unemployed or on a low salary. I prefer living simple and happy to living large and depressed.

Article doesn't say anything useful about Tech

[adturner]

1) All of California isn't silicon valley or even high tech. A lot of those lost jobs have been in housing and farming.
2) 1,200 of those jobs were financial sector. Sure some of those are IT, but clearly not all of them and it's unlikely they're a majority.
3) "trade, transportation, utilities" aren't areas where you see a lot of IT.

Frankly, this isn't nearly as bad as the dot com bust and there are good jobs to be had, but companies are watching head count and so people who don't interview well, only got into tech because of the $$$ not because they'd be any good at it, have little to no experience (You're just out of college? Great! What OSS project did you work on? == blank stare) or can't work well with others are going to find their options very limited.

My company has been hiring and I'm constantly amazed with the large quantity of crappy resumes and relatively few well written ones. And I'm not looking for people who double majored CS/EE at MIT, just people who are competent, bright and have a real desire to learn.

Re:Capitalism is dying, netcraft confirms, news at

[khallow]

Here's a newsflash then: you don't deserve a job. You have absolutely no right to demand a job or a particular income.

More breaking news! Now this: The employee doesn't have a right to the job. The employer doesn't have a right to the employee.

Re:One question

[pleappleappleap]

I just bought some property in the Bangalore area. The condos I bought were a third the price they are here in the far New York suburbs, and if memory serves, the last time I looked in Silicon Valley, it was a good bit more expensive there than here.

Re:One question

[jacquesm]

I know quite a few people that have moved back from the US and actually run pretty impressive IT outfits.

They all got their education states side and they moved back as soon as their finances allowed them to.

They live a pretty good life in India and I don't think there is any amount of money that would entice them to go back.

Re:While the workers suffer...

[drdanny_orig]

As a long-time Silly-valley resident, I've seen this phenomenon before. Senior management actually get bonuses directly proportional to the amount "saved" by downsizing. Right now, looking at the traffic patterns around here, we see a total drop in traffic on the roads, but an increase in both high-end managermobiles and in bluecollarmobiles (cheap SUVs). It's not a good time to live here, unless you happen to be in the pointy end of the pyramid. Jaded? Yeah, so what?

Re:Move to Chicago

[Hognoxious]

Recruiters ask for impossible qualifications, such as 10 years experience with some technology that has only been around for eight

I used to think those ads were there to catch out the liars and bullshitters so they could be blacklisted.

That was when I was young and naìve.