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Forrester Says Tech Downturn Is "Unofficially Over"
alphadogg writes "The US IT market will grow by 6.6% as high-tech spending rebounds in 2010, according to Forrester Research's latest estimates. The research firm based its projections on data reported for 2009, though its fourth quarter numbers are incomplete. Forrester says hints of a recovery surfaced in the third quarter, and now the company expects the global IT market to grow by 8.1% in 2010. Forrester's US and Global IT Market Outlook: Q4 2009 reads: 'The tech downturn of 2008 and 2009 is unofficially over, while the Q3 2009 data for the US and the global market showed continued declines in tech purchases (as we expected). We predict that the Q4 2009 data will show a small increase in buying activity, or at worst, just a small decline.'"
We had a 2% cut in staff at the end of 2008. The 2% came from early retirement and not replacing people. There were a few small departments that were eliminated. Some of the people were absorbed into other departments, but not all. We haven't really added any FTE to our head count, but we have gone through a few contractors.
There were some other cuts. No company picnic at 6 flags in 2009. The holiday dinner at a nice steak house was moved to a less pricey Italian restaurant. Our company is spread out and travel was drastically cut. When we did travel the trips were very short.
I didn't loose my job, and I bought a new car in 2009. However, I know a few of those contractors would have like to stayed around longer after their contracts expired. Instead of hiring 10 people at the start of 2010, my boss is being told that she has to wait until Q3.
The U.S. job situation is made further worse by population growth, which is currently running around 1% annually in the U.S. (~3 million per year). After adjusting for deaths and retires, that necessitates, on average, an additional 100,000 - 150,000 new jobs to be created each month just to stay even.
Or to put it another way, in the 00s decade, there was roughly zero net job growth - there are about as many jobs today as back in 2000, but the U.S. population has grown by about 25+ million in that same time. Many of the jobs that exist today tend to pay less, when adjusted for inflation, than jobs did back 10 years ago.
Ron
If it paid the salary, I wouldn't care if I was paid to just keep one Windows Small Business Server PC up and running. You get what you can take in this economy. No, it wouldn't be as fun as a rackful of high end suns with a root prompt just waiting for you, but it is better than nothing.