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IT Salaries and Hiring Are Up — But Just To 2008 Levels
tsamsoniw writes "A mid-year salary survey has a mix of good and bad news for IT professionals: The good news, hiring is slowly increasing as companies bring more IT operations back in house and salaries are creeping up a bit. But compensation (including benefits) are just now reaching 2008 levels — and hiring will remain soft, at least until the presidential election is over."
The article says this:
"However, hiring overall will remain soft in coming months, particularly with the presidential election in the United States and economic turmoil in the European Union."
The EU part is obvious, but there's no explanation about why the presidential election would have an impact or where they are getting that data from.
However, hiring overall will remain soft in coming months, particularly with the presidential election in the United States and economic turmoil in the European Union.
It'll be interesting to see if this really is perceived as the problem. At least with the US, we'll see or not see big shifts in the markets after election day which is a means to test that particular part of the claim.
One of the biggest problems that I see with people who are still without jobs is that they wouldn't accept anything less than what they were making before. I know plenty of contractors from AT&T who were making $45/hr in 2006 with only Network+ and Security+ certification and a little bit of vim experience. Since the market reset itself, a couple of those guys simply refuse to take anything less than their pre-recession salaries, but they will complain to high heaven about not being able to find a job.
On the other side of the spectrum, I know plenty of kids straight out of college who expect to make $45k/year with their fresh MIS degree, and won't accept anything less. One example--it's been two years since a guy at my gym graduated college--he's still working at the same gym as a personal trainer--and won't even get his foot in the door by taking a job in the industry because they won't pay him (as an entry-level worker) what he "expects" to get paid.
Finally, and this is not a knock on our military IT people, but a lot of guys who are getting out expect to make $100k+ just because they had a high-tech job and were making $50k as an E5 (that includes a housing allowance). IMO--and I did eight years in the USMC--most of the military has a very comfortable life in terms of benefits and pay compared to the civilian world. Simply put, a lot of military IT jobs have no direct equivalent in the civilian sector unless you are willing to stay on base as a contractor, or move to DC.
My advice to these three groups: take whatever job can get. At least you will be working, and will remain marketable. The industry--hell, the entire marketplace in general--is still re-adjusting after the crash. There will likely be another crash + recession very soon. Don't expect to be flying high like we were in the Web 2.0 crash.
well IT does not need college / the loans that come with it.
It need a trades / apprenticeship system that no only is quicker then a 2/4 year college it also give people real job skills.
Congratulations on your first job.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
I didn't go into management, and I didn't corner myself into a braindead corporate bullshit thing like CCIE, CISSP, being an Oracle DBA, etc. I've remained a *nix hacker doing cool things with a variety of good tools. Some days I'm writing infrastructure code in C and Perl, or helping developers scale application server code. Or maintaining Linux systems with automated deployment tools, or working on network infrastructure issues.
And I'm making well over the $100K mark. Salaried, full time, F1000 company, liberal-but-optional work-from-home policy. You don't have to sell out.
I'm confused. On one side you tell people to go where the jobs are and on the other side you say that the only way to get over 100k is to go in specific roles. You do realize that in the big zones (California, Massachusetts and new york come to mind) , if you have over 5 or 6 year experience, don't completely suck and make under 100k you are getting screwed even if you're a code monkey, right?
The only way you are ever going to go over the 100k mark and above you need to specialize in an area that is hot and always remain hot.
This just isn't true. Here, for example, in the Bay Area, salaries for mid-level-and-above developers of all types are higher than $95K/year. People with 5+ years of experience have no trouble finding jobs $100K/yr. And for those of you thinking that it's merely a cost-of-living adjustment, I can tell you it's not. I lived in Ohio for 7 years and the cost-of-living differential is somewhere between 10% and 15% but the salary differential is between 30% and 80% (or more).
The issue is, as one poster above put it, that Silicon Valley and the Bay Area are where the jobs are and if you're in IT and want good pay, this (and some parts of NY) are the place to be.
he was just pointing out that the parent post is nothing but regurgitated corporate whoring from the republican platform. What you are doing is acting like a young child trying to deflect responsibility by claiming that the other kids did the same thing.
it has to be someone that pathetic, since no-one else would debase themselves to the point of claiming that lowering taxes is not a tax cut. Face it boy, the bill for your self-serving sense of entitlement came due earlier than you thought. now you cry like a spoiled four-year old at the thought of having to clean up your own mess. how about you just go to your room and the grownups will call you when we have decided your punishment.
I had an employee recently come to me and say that he wanted his title changed to "VMware Administrator" and that he deserved a 35% increase in pay. We are a small shop and his job is about 60% PC technician, 20% network admin and 20% server admin. We have 2 ESX servers and about 10 VMs. VMware administration is about 10% of his job. He looked at me like I was crazy when I told him that if he wanted to be a VMware specialist, he probably needed to find a job at a larger company that could afford to let him be a specialist, and that at *this* company, the role I needed was the role he holds, and that he is fairly compensated for this role. I then showed him the competitive salary information for our area for his role and that he is above the midpoint for similar jobs.
He did not understand the sad truth of corporate salaries today: It no longer matters how long you have been with the company, or how long it has been since you last had a raise - the only thing that matters is what is on your job description and what other companies are willing to pay for that role in your area. If you want a raise, then you have to get your job description changed to represent a larger scope of responsibility and a role that is worth more money. My employee was on the right track - he wanted to change his job title - but he failed to understand that it isn't the title - it is the job description and the scope of the role that matters.
Corporate life sucks. We are all replaceable, and we are only worth whatever it would take to replace us with some poor, unemployed worker that would take anything as long as it provides benefits and pay better than COBRA and unemployment.
"The fact is, that the vast majority of business people would do honest business and not try to screw anyone, even in the complete absence of government"
That's contrary to the entire history of business since the industrial age.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on