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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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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.