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

[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.

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

[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

[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.

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

[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

[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.

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.

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: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.

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.

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%.

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.

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: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.

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: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.