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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."
move to India ;)
MP3 Search Engine
Guess I better stop reading /. and get to work.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
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.
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.
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.
Free Martian Whores!
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.
MP3 Search Engine
IT workers are cushioned from the US economic downturn.
But I thought that IT Workers Cushioned From US Economic Downturn. I mean, I read it on Slashdot just a few days ago!
-JS
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...
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
This sig is alpha and shouldn't be viewed on production machines
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
----
here's the link for the U6
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab12.htm
should have posted it to begin with.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
With a nick like 'oldspewey', I'm not really surprised. :)
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.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
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.