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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."

12 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 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"
    8. 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.

    9. 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.
    10. 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.

  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.