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IT Salaries and Hiring Are Up — But Just To 2008 Levels

Posted by timothy on from the living-in-the-average-of-past-and-future dept.

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."

20 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Citation needed by ccguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Citation needed by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Businesses may be hesitant to make major investments in hiring (or anything) until they know which way the wind will blow after November.

    2. Re:Citation needed by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What these comments are dancing around is that if 0bama is reelected, businesses will continue to face the same disastrous approach to the economy we have now

      I'm hardly an expert on US matters, but I've always thought that this "disastrous approach" actually predates the Obama presidency, which is forced to cope with its results. Or is there some hope among the US people that a potential non-Obama future president would be able to solve the economical problems of the US in one swift stroke using his magical superabilities?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re:Citation needed by Gorobei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Businesses may be hesitant to make major investments in hiring (or anything) until they know which way the wind will blow after November.

      Businesses hire because they need more people to do the work they have in the pipeline. Outside of a few firms in Washington, presidential elections have about 0% impact on that.

      Anyone saying otherwise is has either never run a business or has an agenda to push.

    4. Re:Citation needed by paiute · · Score: 5, Funny

      What these comments are dancing around is that if 0bama is reelected, businesses will continue to face the same disastrous approach to the economy we have now, along with a massive tax hike. The US will likely continue with the Great Depression II in that case.

      On the other hand, if Romney is elected, the country has a fighting chance to recover.

      Translation: You are in a coma after being shot in the head. Doctor A's treatment of IVs and drugs and stuff isn't having you up and back to work in a week, so your family panics and brings in Doctor B, whose treatment is to shoot you in the head again.

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    5. Re:Citation needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This was the prevailing ideology leading up to the financial crisis, where drastic deregulation to get government "out of the way" paved the way to disaster.

      Any time you can put nine people in a room that are responsible for trashing the world economy, and you have to beg them to let you save them with taxpayer dollars just to avoid a situation worse than the Depression... you've gotten too far out of the way.

      This notion that we should be pushing for the mythical laissez-faire sort of capitalism, and that it will naturally evolve into a stable, working system that distributes resources in a reasonable manner, is bullshit. It's an imperfect world filled with imperfect people.

    6. Re:Citation needed by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm hardly an expert on US matters, but I've always thought that this "disastrous approach" actually predates the Obama presidency

      Correct. I'm Canadian, so I'm greatly affected by what goes in the US Economy. What Obama struggles with, and continues to struggle with are largely related to his predecessors and include, but aren't limited to -

      1) The "Bush Tax Cut" which ensured the US federal government had insufficient taxes to do their job, combined with the trillions spent on overseas wars.

      2) Governments that preceded him being unwilling to regulate the financial sector, resulting in the meltdowns in 2008. (I blame Clinton here too - His presidency is largely to blame for the subprime mortgage mess.)

      3) An obstinate congress which blocks anything, regardless of whether or not it is good for the country.

    7. Re:Citation needed by Surt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And the point of the response was that we have proof this doesn't work. Disastrous proof.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    8. Re:Citation needed by Virtucon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1) The "Bush Tax Cut" which ensured the US federal government had insufficient taxes to do their job, combined with the trillions spent on overseas wars.

      Passed by Both Houses of Congress based on what was thought to be good information at the time.

      2) Governments that preceded him being unwilling to regulate the financial sector, resulting in the meltdowns in 2008. (I blame Clinton here too - His presidency is largely to blame for the subprime mortgage mess.)

      It's good you mention Bill Clinton's administration on this.

      3) An obstinate congress which blocks anything, regardless of whether or not it is good for the country.

      Oh Like when Obama's Administration with a Democratic House and Senate majorities failed to pass budgets?

      Look, this is Slashdot and Politics aside there's a ton of blame for the mess we have. As Will Rodgers once said "If you find yourself in a hole the first thing you do is stop digging."

      The fundamental problems with our government are created by the people who vote for these idiots over and over again. From the people who vote for corrupt politicians to those who vote for people with IQs less than the McDonalds dollar menu prices.

      Speaking from direct experience, the leadership we have is no better than what you find in an episode of "The Office", what should we expect? It doesn't matter, Democrat or Republican and there is the problem, there's only two degrees of separation between them. Close your eyes and you get the same turd sandwich, it's all shit just go ahead and take a bite. Both parties have rigged the political processes, the election laws and created a million barriers for qualified people to run for office. What ever happened to write-in candidates? That's a whole other discussion.

      Back in Feb. 2009 I flew from DC to RDU and sat behind two congressmen. One was so myopic that even with glasses he had to keep the paper an inch off of his nose. When they boarded they were high-fiving each other saying "We passed it" referring to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). During the flight they kept passing pieces of paper back and forth, you couldn't help but overhear occasionally even on a noisy plane. One quip was disturbing "I didn't know that was in there" referring to the ARRA
      legislation.

      So, two congressmen who voted yes on a bill that became law and they didn't read it. Two votes making decisions for you and I. I can't fault their political views or party affiliations but I can fault them for not at least reading the damn legislation that they were voting on. It sounds like they should be part of a human centipad.

      True leadership means making the decisions that are best, not politically expedient and not all of them will be popular. Doing your best also means researching the problem and understanding what you're trying to solve. Unfortunately nowadays everybody in this country has the attention span of a 4 year old and now we have an entire generation of adults who grew up not paying attention, barely passed their courses in College and now are running things.

      Nobody can fault somebody for serving in public office, but it would be nice if there was at least some brighter individuals who would run. Yeah, you'd get rocks thrown at you but at least you'd be doing the country's business rather than trying to

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    9. Re:Citation needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When the economic playing field is young and full of independent entrepreneurs, the "get out of the way" philosophy works well.

      Once the economy is mature, and full of monopolies and cartels, government regulation of business is the only thing that can prevent an overwhelming crime wave or outright bloody revolution.

      We all know that people are greedy, and accepting that fact is why capitalism shines when the market is actually free. A cartel/monopoly-controlled market is the opposite of free, and the greed of the people at the top of these cartels and monopolies makes them every bit as destructive as a totalitarian dictator, with just as much power to boot. They set up barriers to entry which prevents any new business, even one with a superior offering, from ever getting a foothold, and all the benefits of capitalism go up in smoke. If the government does not keep the megacorporations on a leash, the people wind up largely hopeless and desperate, so they take up arms.

    10. Re:Citation needed by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Um. No. That's how we got a financial crisis in the first place. The repeal of Glass-Steagal during the Clinton administration is how banks in the USA got the ability to gamble with *your* money instead of their own. Building a socio-economic environment without regulation is a bit like building a house without any building codes. Firewalls, plumbing and wiring codes exist for a reason. Ditto for financial regulations. It's to the advantage of the wealthiest gamblers NOT to have regulations. For the rest of us who will never win the capitalist lottery in a big way, the regulations protect us.

      Oh, and might I point out that the most successful economy in Europe, is highly regulated AND they have universal health care. Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway aren't doing so poorly either with their regulated economies. Of course, the Swedes were smart enough to let the banks fail and be sold off during their last banking crisis. We, sadly, were not.

      --
      Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
    11. Re:Citation needed by Alomex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Businesses are not able to act confidently when they are worried that the rules are going to keep changing

      Another meme courtesy of the republican party. Rules change all the time when you are in business. New competitors arise, trading treaties are signed, programs appear and disappear, new threats appear out of left field. Change is what businesses do best. To think they are sitting on untold monies because they don't know what will come is ridiculous.

    12. Re:Citation needed by Alomex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How come none of the other recoveries took this long then?

      Except for the great depression or the current Japanese and Irish depression all of which you conveniently forget to mention.

      Maybe it's not the economy. Maybe it's him and his policies.

      Or maybe all the other recessions were created by tightening of monetary policy and quickly cured as interests rates went down when inflation subsided.

      In contrast when recessions are caused by deleveraging they all have in common that they are really hard to solve, like the great depression, like Japan, like Ireland. The only way out we know is massive spending as in the great depression. The republican party is opposed to this always, regardless of how out of the ordinary the circumstances might be, requiring an exception to be made.

    13. Re:Citation needed by thoth · · Score: 4, Informative

      The best thing a government can do for an economy is get out of the way.

      That's what conservatives did: weaken financial regulations, lower taxes, etc. The result was the disaster of the Bush presidency culminating in the financial crisis of 2008, which we are still feeling the effects of.

      Sorry, but this mantra conservatives keep preaching is demonstrably false.

    14. Re:Citation needed by Beeftopia · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The problem is not bank failure. The FDIC regularly seizes banks on Bank Failure Friday. Banks fail all the time:

      http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

      The problem is the complete lack of any serious reform. Too Big To Fail, a major issue, is even worse today than it was in 2008. The failed banks are merged with larger banks with the government absorbing significant losses.

      Basically, the current system uses tax money to fund Wall Street profits. Bad loans which the government insures or buys means tax money goes to make the loan good, making the lender whole, and leaves the taxpayer on the hook. With government debt at 100% GDP, the government should not be funneling money to Wall Street for pure profit, and getting nothing in return.

      Tax money should be used for public goods, not Wall Street profits. That system has not changed in any significant way. The Too Big To Fail banks are completely and totally backstopped by the government. And that means these entities have a direct line to the public treasury.

      Creative destruction is desperately necessary at the top. The people who orchestrated this debacle are still in power, both in finance and politics. They rose to the top because of their ability to create and prosper in this terribly flawed system. To think they'll voluntarily change it when it rewards them so handsomely is completely unrealistic.

  2. Entitlement problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Entitlement problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There's a flipside to this. IT workers *have* been traditionally underpaid since around 1995 and the first wave of large-scale internet boom. Our salaries gained a bit and almost approached "worth it" around 1999-2000, but then the big dotcom bubble hit in 2001 (the people I'm talking about worked for real businesses, not stupididea.com, but were all still affected). From then on as the markets have gone through periodic mini-recession cycles and layoff seasons, the net result has been no raises. Most people I know in the IT industry are making today roughly what they made in Y2K. On average, they missed years of their expected ~5% raises per year for performance/tenure/whatever, and never really got adjusted for inflation. Sometimes it's because the layoff cycle had them switching jobs too often with every company's policy being to wait on raises for a full calendar year. More often it's just that businesses keep telling even their long term It employees things like "The economy sucked and our business is down a bit, so no raises this year".

      It is complete horse-shit, and it won't turn around until people who deserve better start demanding it. If you were a productive IT employee making, for example $80K in salaried spot at a mid-large company in 2000, and you've stuck with your career and performed well and not made too many unnecessary changes of employment, and grown in responsibilities as appropriate, you *should* be making ~$130K+ today. But you're probably making $90K. They screwed you, the whole industry...

  3. Re:im making more than i did in 2008 by Bigbutt · · Score: 3, Funny

    Congratulations on your first job.

    [John]

    --
    Shit better not happen!
  4. Actually. by publiclurker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  5. Expectations by billybob_jcv · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.