How Companies Are Preparing For the IT Workforce Exodus

itwbennett writes "If you think there's a glut of contract IT workers now, just wait. 10,000 U.S. baby boomers will turn 65 every day from now until 2030, and at least some of them will want to ease into retirement. This may sound like music to the ears of IT organizations who already would rather hire temporary staff with specialized expertise — especially for working on legacy technologies. 'The contractor ratio, already high in tech, will continue to increase as companies allow retiring staff to work part-time hours or hire them for short-term projects,' says Matthew Ripaldi, senior vice president at IT staffing firm Modis."

Comments

OP or tune it ee

[symbolset]

If you're in tech now the geezers are finally going to let you move up by retiring.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, if you want to work for India Business Machines or Chinese Info Systems COmpany. Speak much Hindi or Mandarin?

The retirements just mean another faux "shortage" of talent to support more offshoring and H1B programs.

But then, I hear the NSA is hiring...

Re:OP or tune it ee

[symbolset]

Or your state's IT department, or one of your state's many agencies. Or the federal government or its myriad arms. Or any city/county that's been around for a while. All of these have IT geezers who are ready to go fishing forever. You are trying to find nettles in a field of berries.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[symbolset]

We're talking about jobs where geezers are retiring. Nobody retires from .com jobs as a geezer. They quit, cash out, opt out, are laid off or are forced out a-la Microsoft's Stack Ranking while they're still in their 30's. There is no retirement in private sector tech. If you're old enough to worry about that, you're on your way out.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[symbolset]

The opportunity for bad actors is ripe, it is true. It looks like Strawberry Fields forever to them.

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[Anonymous Coward]

If you're in tech now the geezers are finally going to let you move up by retiring.

If you thinks it's the geezers that are holding you back, you should probably look for a job in another field. If anything, geezers are the ones being fired because they make too much.

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[symbolset]

Strokes grey beard - tell me more, young AC.

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[Nerdfest]

Make too much sense? Tech seems to be one of the few places has at least a tendency to pay people what they're worth.

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[Anonymous Coward]

No, they'll retain their position and likely their pay, only moving to part-time work. So they still get to career-block you, but now they can do it from home. Nothing like a GS 13/14/15 who manages to never be in the office, yet still holds a slot and draws a check. We are horribly shorthanded these days due to this crap, despite being "overstaffed."

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[AlecC]

As a geezer, one of the main criticisms at my review was that I tend to overload younger staff with too much information. Because I have seen so much before, I can jump on new problems faster. And I am working at what thinks of itself as a leading edge chip design company on the newest products.The company chooses me for the bleeding edge.

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[Gr8Apes]

And yet, the faster IT "develops", the more it seems like year x's crop reinvents the wheel, and several years later, the "hot" trend that was the silver bullet either really does have all the same flaws as yesteryear's tech, or brought in some new ones that made it an even worse choice.

The only thing that's developed rather rapidly is hardware, and that train has slowed relative to technology to take advantage of it. Software wise, some new tech has come out, but mostly existing tech has refined itself. Nothing I'd call revolutionary compared to what existed before.

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[dbIII]

Oi! That's not my beard!

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[deadweight]

I can't see how you can do that "officially", but we do have a few scammers that "work" from offsite but somehow can't seem to answer emails. Like I told my boss, when *I* work at home I'll actually answer an email or a phone call.

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[TWiTfan]

I've been listening to this "The Baby Boomers are going to retire and all you Gen-Xers and Millenials will have jobs aplenty!!" horseshit for decades now. But I have never see it happen. Most of the boomers I've known are way too self-centered and selfish to ever voluntarily surrender any power ("Me Generation" indeed) . In my field, I think I've seen more old boomers die at this point than retire. They just stay around forever like some kind of mold, getting in the way, collecting their big paychecks, and preventing anyone else from advancing (or innovating).

Sorry to sound bitter. I'm sure there are plenty of great boomers out there. But in the places I've worked, I've come to see them mostly as a pain-in-the-ass and obstacle to be overcome.

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[boristdog]

I've heard it too, and I'm making it a reality, for myself at least. I'm not a true "boomer", since I was born in the mid-60's, but I'm not really whatever they call what came next, either.

But I see what's happening with the lack of jobs. So I'm saving my money, paying off all my debts, building up some alternate income sources and I plan to retire in about 5 or 6 years in my early 50's so someone younger can have my high-paying programmer/dba/analyst job. I don't need a huge house (kids are gone) or an expensive car, expensive 5 star vacations, etc. All I need is health insurance, my little place, my pets, my garden, a good car, lots of inexpensive vacations to fun places and some side work to keep me busy and I'm a happy SOB.

Turns out that none of that costs much except health insurance. And the republicans in my state want to keep me from getting affordable health care. So I can't retire until I can get that. And neither can my older co-workers. So we have to work, causing young people to be shut out of the good jobs, causing an economic crisis.

All because a bunch of petulant little whiners in government don't want people to have affordable health insurance because it may make the black man in the White House look good..

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[jacobsm]

I'm one of those geezers who's planning to retire in the next 5-10 years, currently with 34 years of zOS Systems Programmer experience behind me. if you want my job you're going to need to know;

S390 Assembler
How the operating system works
What to do when it doesn't
Data management.
Storage management.
Hardware configuration.
Data Encryption and security.
Networking.
Obscure business logic.
Knowing what to do, and more importantly why you MUST do it.
Knowing what NOT to do, and why it's a really bad idea.
Knowing what rules to make.
Knowing when to break the rules, and when not to.
Knowing when to tell Management they're an idiot, and they accept it because of your track record on being right.

Do you get the picture?

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[swillden]

We're talking about jobs where geezers are retiring. Nobody retires from .com jobs as a geezer. They quit, cash out, opt out, are laid off or are forced out a-la Microsoft's Stack Ranking while they're still in their 30's. There is no retirement in private sector tech. If you're old enough to worry about that, you're on your way out.

Bah.

I'm 44 and quite productively employed in private sector tech... and work with many people significantly older than I am, some into their 60s.

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[orthancstone]

I can't see how you can do that "officially", but we do have a few scammers that "work" from offsite but somehow can't seem to answer emails.

Your username seems an apt description of said individuals.

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[Thud457]

I dye my beard, you ageist bastards!

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[RMingin]

Funny that you would choose that joke. NSA is actually *firing* almost all it's sysadmins.

This will be hilarious in a few years, when their new highly automated system has a problem and they desperately want to contract some of those canned admins back in.

http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/08/09/1419228/nsa-firing-90-of-its-sysadmins

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[BVis]

No, you need to know enough to migrate to something that isn't three decades old.

These 'rules' that you speak of, what makes you think the engineers/developers have any input on those? The only leverage you have on some of this stuff is to quit if what they're asking you to do is stupid enough. (Actually, first, you get a new job offer, then you tell management "I'm not doing that." When they threaten your job, you tell them "That's fine, either way, it's not getting done." But, they WILL call your bluff, so make sure it isn't a bluff. Case in point: My company asked me to remove all the data validation on user input in a web application because "customers won't be able to place orders". Seriously. That's when I started looking for a new job, because they 1) don't believe that data validation is worthwhile, and 2) don't listen to me when I try to explain to them why it's not optional. (My current analogy for that is that you can drive a car on the highway without wearing your seatbelt, but it's a really bad idea. True, 999 times out of 1000 you won't wreck and get ejected from the car, but it only hasn't happened until it does.)

And telling Management that they're idiots, even when they are, will get you fired, period. Doesn't matter if you're right or not, you're the company's bitch, and there's 150 people who will do your job for less than they're paying you.

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[CimmerianX]

I'm right there with you buddy. And the influx of H1B visa workers is downward pressure on salaries as well. I thought by now I would be making far more than I do, but the influx of cheap cheap, pseudo-slave labor is a constant threat to our kind now.

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[jacobsm]

I had two people, one got taken away from me, the other wanted a different career path and moved into a Management position. Currently there's no one assigned to me, and the only other person in the Data Center who can do some of what I do will be retiring next year.

It takes several years of training and hands on experience to become a somewhat useful Systems Programmer.

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[Gilmoure]

Management says they want to fire 90% of their employees (what's the inverse of decimate; 1/decimate?). My boss would like to cut payroll by 90% as well but he ain't. Yet.

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[robot256]

Guess what, the geezers who are holding your company back now weren't much better when they were young. The really sharp ones only get sharper as they age, unless senility sets in.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I was one of those with "seen so much before"... I actually had a coworker grab me for a problem (they'd spent hours on), I hopped into it and pointed out a bunch of problems in about 30 minutes. He said he has "no idea how I figured that out", so I said I was always willing to take some time and sit down with someone and teach them some things.

His answer? "Oh, I don't want to know what you do... then they'd expect it of me."

I'm the one who just got laid off, of course... he got promoted to being in charge of another department I hear.

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[bberens]

I don't know where you work, but around here there really is a shortage. IT unemployment is under 3% that means if you have any kind of usable skills and want a job you probably have one. Being on the hiring end of the interviews I can say it's VERY hard to find candidates that are even in the ballpark of our required skill sets. We don't do H1Bs directly but will via consulting firms. We have a team of about 10 of them working on a segregated project. The entire dev team here is probably 50-ish on various projects. Granted, it'd be nice if wages were going up but we're offering six figure incomes in a relatively lower income area. It's tough out there.

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[Maxo-Texas]

Grats.

I've seen this several times (all the way back to the 80's).

Get to your 40's and your risk increases enormously. As long as you can keep the job you have, you are fine. But if you get fired or laid off, you may not be able to get back in.

Several companies require your HIGHSCHOOL graduation date. Not proof you graduated. Not your college gradutation date.

The government needs to outlaw that practice. It's clearly used to prescreen applicants so they don't get to the interview process so you can't sue for age discrimination.

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[guyniraxn]

So your employer is unwilling to train anyone anymore. Younger programmers are just supposed to pop out of college with intimate knowledge of anything and everything that may have been in production for the past several decades?

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[Maxo-Texas]

Don't know if this helps but 5 million people went on social security 2010 and 2011 vs 5 million people from 2000 to 2009.

Most men and almost all women retire by age 65. I think the numbers are like 75% and 90% respectively. Those who keep working are mostly lawyers, politicians, ceo's, and similar types. Not people who punch a clock or work a fixed schedule and mostly people who either enjoy what they do a lot or who have redefined play as work (i.e. going to conferences in spain, hawaii, europe...)

The retirement rate went from 2.5 million per year to 3.5 million per year in 2012.
It increases again to 4.5 million per year in 2016.

You can't see it because of how close it is but the job market should be pretty sweet sometime between 2016 and 2020.

And the chinese and europeans are retiring/dying at the same time.

Only the indians are off sync with the rest of the world. But they are increasingly expensive; the competent ones seem to have been consumed/moved into management; and are less willing to travel/work like slaves-- I'd give it another 8 years on them.

Geezers can be highly effective but once they lose their job- no one will hire them. So they are not going to be a concern.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, all those geezers ...um classically trained...in C or C++, tend to hold back the vibrant youth of today who are trying to rewrite it all in PHP or Python or Ruby or ~insert trendy new language here~.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[jacobsm]

Just about.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[swillden]

I got hired by my current employer at age 42... and I'm headhunted regularly.

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[swillden]

Did you mean this to be a response to a different post?

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[Maxo-Texas]

Charlton Heston got regular roles as an actor into his 70's too.

Grats-- but save like you wont' have a job in your 50's

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[operagost]

There's no fool like an old fool.

Obama's the one who has, unilaterally and probably unconstitutionally, removed employer requirements from the bill and waived hundreds of companies. It was the Supreme Court that determined the Federal government couldn't make states run exchanges. No Republicans need be involved. And your blaming it on racism is childish and stupid.

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[jacobsm]

Don't have one. Been asking for years.

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[couchslug]

When you become the paid obstacle, we shall see how fast you renounce your job to make way for new blood.

Everyone is your competition. Work is war.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[dubbreak]

Last company I worked at (private) had plenty of over 40 employees in R&D. We had a physics PhD in his 70s who could sling some mean awk and run circles around me in C. While the guy was still excellent at coding his biggest value was his knowledge (both company related history and general tech.. want a quick synopsis of rfc XXXX? He's your man.). The guy would have had value sitting in a throne all day as an oracle, disseminating his knowledge and wisdom to those who brave enough to approach. His value was well known within R&D, however I'm not sure the latest CEO understood his value to the company. He's an asset you keep at all costs and should be willing to bend over backwards to keep him happy (not that he ever asked for much).

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[boristdog]

Obama's the one who has, unilaterally and probably unconstitutionally, removed employer requirements from the bill and waived hundreds of companies

Ummm...Did you read what I was saying? WHY should health insurance be tied to employment? If I could get affordable health insurance NOT tied to my employer (and I have great health insurance through my employer) then I COULD RETIRE IN ABOUT THREE YEARS. And one of you young whippersnappers could have my job.

As it is I cannot get affordable health insurance without being employed, so I end up screwing some young person out of a job for an additional 15 years or so until Medicare kicks in. Now multiply this over the millions of others in my situation and...enjoy your un-or-underemployment, I guess.

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[Sigma 7]

Being on the hiring end of the interviews I can say it's VERY hard to find candidates that are even in the ballpark of our required skill sets.

I've been seeing this a lot - the first major job search I did was part of co-op, and employers were demanding ~5 years of crystal reports which is well beyond those who are in college and learning stuff for the first time.

There is only a shortage of purple squirrels. If you look for actual talent, or actually spend time to train a newcomer (90 days for basic tasks, and gradually increase responsibility afterward), then you have plenty of applicants available where you don't even need to call in an H1B.

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[swillden]

Meh. I'll have a job as long as I want to have a job. It may not always be exactly the job I want, but I'll always be employed. Not to deride saving, of course. Saving aggressively is important at all ages.

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[Maxo-Texas]

Speaking from experience... there's a major drop in energy and vitality at 43 and again at 53. I don't know about older ages.

I was able retire from IT. Very ironically, they laid me off 1 day before I was going to retire. Thank god I hadn't told them about my plans tho some of my reports new since i was prepping them to take over.

It was my third layoff and the second time I was closing on mid six figures. After the second layoff I started living on about half of what I make and maintaining about a 45% savings rate (it got a little over 50% the last year or two).

So many people I worked with still haven't found work and had no savings. Sad.
I heard about house payments and kids college bills a lot at the end.

I miss the sense of purpose even tho it was false (to be honest, I can't think of any work I did that wasn't thrown away within 10 years and not much which lasted over 5 years. When I was growing up, I wasn't one of those lucky people who know what they wanted to be. I just kinda got lucky-- liked assembly language- wandered into Java just in time and then project management and management.

I disliked "CMP" the worst- especially since they said "CMP" but then didn't really follow it and then they went to stacked ranking which meant you could only give one good ranking per team per year and you had to down-rank one person too. In our case, we were lucky and had an obvious downranker but some teams had only good people.

Didn't matter-- 90% layoffs and offshoring. They laid off almost everyone with technical skill and retained only architects, project office project managers, and business analysts.

Barely made it!

Everyone in IT should consider their career to be over by 50. If they make it past that, well then bonus.

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[Maxo-Texas]

Don't want to give the wrong impression- we did have a couple of 60 year olds who could code the kids under the table and who were current technically but they loved being in IT and basically had no life as a result. Had one that retired and died four months later.

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[Maxo-Texas]

Grrrr.

And many people in their 50's didn't make it. Partially the luck of having an executive looking out for you or not. You might be in the couple of 60 year olds yourself-- or you might be in the dozens of fifty year olds (which is more likely).

Re:OP or tune it ee

[rwa2]

Heh, not as funny as job reqs that wanted "10 years of java experience" in 1996, but I guess I could have stretched "tweaked a thing in Crystal Reports on a site I consulted on in 10th grade" into "5 years of Crystal Reports"

But after all those years of striving to meet academic precision and ethical guidelines, it's still funny and bewildering and remarkable how the job market is anything but, and that I would have voluntarily eliminated many promising jobs from consideration because I didn't meet some small criteria that some HR drone copied-n-pasted probably erroneously from something else.

Nowadays I just look at "Job Requirements" as "Desirements"... both from what the employer is looking for, and from what I would like to build my own expertise in. Makes much more sense that way, and all requirements are temporary anyway since every employer is usually in the process of migrating to the $next_best_thing .

Never got into any co-op programs or internships in HS or U, but in retrospect I think I came out ahead of my classmates who did, since I much more time for many more AP classes / electives / team projects / part-time jobs / etc. that managed to put just as many or more buzzwords on my resume.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[bbsalem]

Wait till you reach 50-55.

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[bbsalem]

I don't know where you work, but around here there really is a shortage. IT unemployment is under 3% that means if you have any kind of usable skills and want a job you probably have one. Being on the hiring end of the interviews I can say it's VERY hard to find candidates that are even in the ballpark of our required skill sets. We don't do H1Bs directly but will via consulting firms. We have a team of about 10 of them working on a segregated project. The entire dev team here is probably 50-ish on various projects. Granted, it'd be nice if wages were going up but we're offering six figure incomes in a relatively lower income area. It's tough out there.

Uh ha, its tough out there. Maybe though it boils down to investment and whether investors are accountable in any way other than the bottom line, such as social consciousness or patriotism, or even just fear of social instability and violence. If the problem here is that older workers are being pushed out, and that is not a new trend in IT or Tech, and being replaced by part-time and offshore workers, the problem is worse for our children's generation. Even when they have college degrees many of them are being forced to take part-time or minimum wage jobs and some 17 million of them between ages 32 and 35 have to live at home because they can't find good enough jobs to support them. Again, it is investment that creates jobs, not the need for jobs, and that fact manifests itself in different ways in different parts of the economy.

So, I just heard something on the housing market, on soft demand for new homes and shortage of used housing. Part of the shortage is due to the fact that there is large demand by investors for reposessed homes in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) to turn into rental properties. This is bad for building trades because less money is spent on improvements of rentals than new homes. It also suggests that most people in this economy are unable to realize the American Dream of owing their own home, fewer than their parents generation. Who are these investors? Tell me. What sanctions do we have on what they are allowed to do under law and as a sociatial value?

Nor are we out of the woods in investment speculation, the kind of malfeasance that the too-large-to-fail banks caused to begin the wreck the economy in 2008, and with which the Congress has done nothing to remedy in terms of investment oversight and regulation. My point is really, who are these investors, and what input, other than just our own possible weak economic activity, do we have about their decisions? Conservatives tell us that it was federal funding of Student Loans and subsidizies of academic institutions that lead to the high tuition and loan debt our children's generation is carrying. Of course they aren't telling you that those interest rates are really dictated by the general investment climate and the lending rates in the bond markets, and Congress debates the rate to pass back to students based on what the government has to pay to back the loans. No one tells us what decisions sets the bond rates. No one is accountable for the risks of investing in bonds and securities to be used to raise funds that ultimately are used to create jobs.

"Its Tough Out there", you say, and I am not disagreeing with you, but it is a shame that people, even people with useful and not necessarily obsolete skills are marginalized by processes they don't know how to think about and whose political meaning is not discussed much. The fact is that hiring managers can get very choosy, turning away qualified and useful talent because their hand has already been forced by investor choices. This is not communicated back to applicants, that it isn't that applicants are stupid it is that the economic conditions do not meet the reasonable needs of people and cater to the unreasonable desires of a few. That is revolutionary and dangerous. I know of nothing that sows the dragon's teeth of discord more than that. One can analyze the violence in

Re:OP or tune it ee

[swillden]

Wait till you reach 50-55.

You mean like all of the 50-55 year olds that I work with? They're also fully and productively-employed software engineers. So are those in their 60s.

What am I waiting for?

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[DeathToThePatriarchy]

Not to mention the eagerness of every right wing republican to increase the age at which one gets Medicare or the full payment of social security (it's at 70, now). If you younger types want the jobs you keep trying not to hire us boomers for, talk with your elected representatives and make retirement a bit less of a beg-for-healthcare, eat dog food (if one retires at 55 and lives to 85... or longer......) situation, lots of us would be able to take our eagerness to step off the treadmill with our box of tchotchkes out the door.

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[kermidge]

pp. 13-14 in mine.

That aside, the points are well-made, and well taken. Thanks. It's easy to get mechanical, less easy to keep in mind that a good mechanic does his work just so.

On the foreign worker thing, Wolfram Alpha gives total IT jobs in U.S. at around 4 million - from CIS research scientists to "miscellaneous computer specialists." David North, at Center for Immigration Studies, gives an estimate (2009) in a small report from 2011 of ~650,000 H1B workers in the country. Link, http://www.cis.org/estimating-h1b-population-2-11. The reason for estimates is that apparently no one is keeping a running tally; it's a short report and worth the reading. I found http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2013/04/19/federal-plan-could-double-h1b-visas.html?page=all worthwhile also.

Of the 10,000/day retiring, how many work in IT? The cited article from the summary doesn't say. Without good numbers to work with.... it's another fun and interesting water-cooler conversation.

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[kermidge]

"....I can't think of any work I did that wasn't thrown away within 10 years and not much which lasted over 5 years."

There sometimes are good things to say about working with your hands. A house I worked on, all barn beam, brick, and oak plank, ought to last a good long while unless it burns or gets knocked down. The 55' ferro-cement ketch I helped a friend build could last easily a century so long as the zincs are kept up. Funny, tho, of the things I've worked on or built myself that will last long, none of them paid enough to save from, and the tree-planting was all freebie.

Unless one can leave a work of art or make a discovery, for legacy or sense of purpose, best I can figure is to give of what you know, try to leave a few things better than you found them.

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[Gr8Apes]

That major drop in vitality is directly related to your exercise level and genetics. Some have it earlier, some later, exercise can delay it for many. I suffered a drop and started eating better and exercising, and recovered most of the drop. Some will tell you for men that it's the drop in testosterone. I'm sure it has an effect. But knowing a 90 year old guy that still runs marathons and started in his mid 50s when he was overweight and on his way to a major heart attack tells me it's not the entire story.

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[Maxo-Texas]

The testosterone effect is pronounced for about 25% of men. They really need to go on HRT. For me, it rolled back the clock from 45 to 30 (both physically/muscles, reaction time, background pain level, healing rate, reaction to working out, desire for sex, performance during sex, ability to sleep, clarity of thought, and mood). So I recommend every male go and get tested. If you are below 300 and feel different, you need supplementation. You can only stay on it until you get prostate cancer and then you are done because HRT is like gasoline to prostate cancer. Tho really it's due to the testosterone aromatizing into estrogen and not to the testosterone directly.

The 90 year old man is atypical (but you know that given your inclusion of genetics). For one thing, 98.2% of people are dead by age 90-- men die at a higher rate so right from the start he's in the 1% that was still alive. Some people are active after 100. But you don't have nearly as much "extra" to recover from setbacks.

This weekend, I attended the funeral of a a healthy active, fit 77 year old who got up from a couch, passed out and fell down all of 6' to the floor and got a concussion and died within 45 days.

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[Maxo-Texas]

Good thoughts. Words of wisdom.

Now that I've retired, I'm trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

I have some artistic and musical talent but both would need a lot of training.

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[Gr8Apes]

Sorry to hear about your friend. I've always wondered whether a dose of HGH, either alone or combined with a some other hormones that are much lower as we age, would kick start the healing process and give an artificial bounce back for older people. I'm sure there would be side effects, but manipulating the body's systems in this fashion is something we are only starting to explore.

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[kermidge]

Kind words, thank you.

"trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life"

Take a break, walk around, work out the kinks, clear out some cobwebs. One exercise, imagine yourself on your death bed looking back at your life and seeing what makes you laugh and what makes you cry. Live accordingly.

I suspect for many of us that boils down to "relax, breathe, play." There doesn't have to be a Big Answer; we tend to judge ourselves too harshly.

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[bbsalem]

I am glad for you. I have been told that my skills are out dated, and have seen management targeting older workers in high-tech. One manager I worked for at what was at the time a major Silicon Valley firm seemed to be going after anyone who had used the medical benefit; but that was hard to prove as he never said anything that could have revealed his intention.

A buyers market causes interviewers to set more and more exacting criteria which good generic experience, and especially experience with legacy technology. is easy to dismiss. I would like to know that conditions have changed since 2008, but I think that high tech has not recovered from the bubble that burst in 2993, meaning that there isn't the broad investment in high tech jobs that there was in the '90's. The market has now specialist demand and no need for generalists, as dae as I can tell.

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...says Matthew Ripaldi, senior vice president at IT staffing firm Modis"

Should we even take this post at face value?

Re:Seriously?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Yeah, what does Dice know about hiring trends?

Re:Seriously?

[Areyoukiddingme]

That they're uniformly negative, but they're not about to tell us that.

Re:Outsourcing

[Joining Yet Again]

Capitalism pretends that you can think in the long term by pandering to the interests of men who only need enough money to live for one lifetime.

All non-regulated industries end up as you describe, really.

Glut of IT workers?

[pthisis]

If you think there's a glut of contract IT workers now ...then you lack a basic understanding of labor markets.

Computer Programmers: 3.7%
DB Admins: 1.3%
Network and sysadmins: 3.9%
Network and data analysts: 3.9%
Software devs, application, and systems software: 4.0%

Those are the current unemployment rates for workers in those occupations. It's pretty much the same for all IT occupations; there are few enough workers that companies are having a tough time filling jobs, and even moderately skilled employees aren't having trouble finding jobs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323936804578229873392511426.html

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[Dr_Barnowl]

Second that ; whenever we try hiring, the standard of the applicants is utter, utter, dross.

They typically exhibit faults like

* Lacing basic reading comprehension

For example, they tender applications for development jobs... when they were applying for testing.

* Apply for every job

When I apply for a job, I read the application and compose a precise strike covering letter, tailor my CV, the full treatment, because there are so few jobs out there that would interest me. These guys cut and paste applications into a huge list of jobs and it shows. Why would I want to hire someone who isn't interested in my position?

* Lack basic English skills

Spelling and grammar mistakes are a no-no. Successful software development is about communication - communicating with the user to get the requirements right, communicating with the computer to implement them. I don't wish to hire someone who displays difficulty communicating with concision in any of their chosen languages. Writing incomprehensible goobledegook in your job application will get it canned. Without wishing to be biased, this applies equally to the many Indian applicants (they outnumber the natives, typically) we receive responses from.

* Being unable to program

You'd think this would deter most folks from applying from programming jobs, but apparently many people have no shame. While I don't expect people to reinvent wheels like ArrayList, I do expect you to know how they are constructed.

* Lacking any kind of initiative

If you're asked a tough logic problem in an interview, even if you're stumped, you don't give up. If you attack it in a way that reveals some kind of thought process going on, I will give you credit for it.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[Dr_Barnowl]

And of course, the spelling and grammar nazi has made an error in his post!

<fires self>

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[asmkm22]

All they're saying is that the number of CONTRACTOR and/or CONSULTING jobs will go up, as businesses aren't likely to replace all of their aging and retiring in house staff. They aren't saying the overall unemployment rate or even career demand will change. Just that the shift away from in house staff is going to speed up in the next few decades as a result of baby boomers exiting the market.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[gagol]

Good decoy... way to keep grammar hackers away!

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[ruir]

I guess that paying them a decent salary is out of question, then?

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[ruir]

The point is that everyone nowadays doesn't think long term, and just wants cheap labor, and then complains it can't find competent applicants, because the competent ones are already with a stable job, and/or don't bother applying for cheap ass salaries.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[Anonymous Coward]

You think he really want the folks who are in it only for the money?

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[ruir]

It is not wanting the folks "who are only on it for the money". The point is paying a honest/good salary to start attracting people competent enough.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[cyber-vandal]

Why would I want to hire someone who isn't interested in my position?

Because you need their skills perhaps? I don't hire a plumber because he likes my house, I hire him because he can fix my boiler.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[NJRoadfan]

What, isn't $33k/yr for someone living on the coasts a comfortable salary? ;) Maybe if the barriers to entry in the field weren't so high, more people would apply for all those openings that apparently exist. Every once in a while you see an "ask Slashdot" post where someone new to the field is struggling to get their first job due to the lack of experience.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[bzipitidoo]

Shortage of good candidates? If that is true, and you'd like to know who is responsible, look in a mirror.

One can have only just so many horrifying Dilbertesque employment experiences before ideas like a change of careers, or early retirement start to look attractive. Trying to become an independent consultant or start your own business looks daunting, but that's the direction I've been pushed. The prices that a sweatshop employer asks-- the humiliations, constant accusations of laziness and incompetence, demands for putting in extra hours, and then the really out of bounds stuff like being asked to falsify test results or show your "commitment" to your work by getting yourself financially upsidedown, with the threat of being terminated maintained as a festering ache in the back of the mind-- are so high that the benefits of being able to focus on technical work, especially programming, and not having to bother with administrative, managerial, and sales work, are insufficient compensation. Money is not the issue, not when an employer is pushing employees to lie and cheat, and even break the law and risk a stint in prison. Of course if, or more like when, the moment of truth arrives, the employer sure as hell isn't going to back their employees, no, quite the opposite. The employer will sell out those who bowed to the pressure to cheat.

I keep seeing all these surveys that rank software engineering as one of the top 10 or 5 or 3 best careers to follow, and I just can't believe it. Dilbert would not have the traction it does if the dark humor of it wasn't all too true. Too many complaints of worker shortages have been revealed as self-serving lies, part of a general effort to beat down compensation in any and every way possible, quality of the workers be damned. Maybe, this time, you, Mr. Employer, really are having troubles finding good workers. Have you tried the last resort, of offering more pay? If there really is wage inflation, then I'll believe. But forgive me for feeling just a bit cynical.

What, may I ask, are employers doing about all this? Whining to the government for more H1Bs? Outsourcing? But that's not what I mean. Don't you think employers' acts need a lot of cleaning up? What are you doing about that? I suppose it hasn't occurred to employers that anything needed to be done, certainly not by employers.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[Anon-Admin]

Wouldn't it be great if we had something like a help desk position, low entry requirements and easy to do.
We could then use those jobs to find the people who love computers and as they excel and learn they could move into Jr Admin or L1 positions.
The ones that excel at the Jr. Admin/L1 positions could learn and move into L2 positions.
Those that excel at L2 could learn and move into an L3/Engineer
Those exceptional Engineer's could move into Architect positions

That would never happen, that would have to stop outsourcing Help Desk/L1/L2/L3 and bring them back to groom good high level Engineers and Architects.

Oh well, until then, I am going to rake in the cash.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[CimmerianX]

Problem is, companies want skilled IT workers for the cost of an entry level office worker.... That's why they bitch and moan and want to pull workers from overseas.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[NJRoadfan]

I was referring to programming/software development positions, not support/systems administrator. Many positions require some past work experience, it is impossible to find entry level positions in the field in most locations. I don't work in an IT related field, instead I put my programming and analytical skills to work elsewhere.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[NJRoadfan]

If you are really only making $33k/yr doing the above and live in an area with high cost of living, I would be very surprised. Most large companies would pay more for that experience. You may be running into the "no college degree" ceiling, although I have a friend who basically babysits a few people and a BBM server and somehow made $65k a year without one. He did eventually get a degree with help from his company's tuition reimbursement program. Sounds like you need to make a convincing argument to your superiors for a raise.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[boskone]

This is expensive, but get a career coach. A good, paid one. Pay them their $200/hr once a month for two years and I'll bet you've doubled your salary by then.

I'll leave the NPV calculation to you

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[HornWumpus]

They've got you misclassified for their own benefit.

Skip the 3rd associates degree. WTF are you thinking? 3 worthless degrees?

Just get a regular 'help desk' job somewhere else. Your current employer deserves to crash and burn. They will _never_ classify you as an admin as long as they can get away with paying you as help desk.

It's time to write that job off. Continue to 'attend' the job, but stop 'working' it. Make finding a better job your full time work. When you find a better job, for fucks sake don't accept your current employers counter-offer. Just don't do it.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[HornWumpus]

At least half of graduating CS students are clueless.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[Maxo-Texas]

He was making a reference to the cost of offshored workers.

My company laid off about 500 of us last year and went to a mixture of offshore workers and a few dozen very expensive consultants.

I hear it's going about as well as you might think.

The good news is I got laid off 1 day before I was going to retire.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[Maxo-Texas]

When I entered IT, we were kind of the priest kings. Good pay, bad hours, reasonable status.

As I retired from IT, we were a cost center. Good pay, ridiculous hours plus nights and weekends and almost all holidays, terrible status.

I couldn't recommend it as a career to anyone. The technology changes too fast these days and age discrimination is blatant and harsh.

Offshoring competition is harsh tho I think it will start easing in under 8 years. Their wage inflation is incredible (20% a year) and their willingness to leave home for years is diminishing.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[asmkm22]

As much as I want to jump on that bandwagon and complain, I have to disagree. Average salaries are still up, and I've never been outright low-balled for an IT position. I think a lot of the "complaining" that you hear about not being able to find competent applicants is really just an effort to further the whole HB-1 agenda for a small portion of huge companies that are looking for that. Yeah, I'm sure there are some positions that come up involving arcane or older skill sets that can be hard to find, but most aren't trying to fill them on a retail salary; they just have a hard time finding someone with those skills.

The problem is that people get into this industry seeing reports of average salaries in the $70-120k range and assume that anything less is a rip off. I've seen people bitch about getting an offer of $50k for some mid-size business in Idaho with a handful of servers and maybe 30 employees, because it doesn't pay as much as their last job at TechGiant#7 in New York. There's a real mismatch in expectations in this industry when it comes to salary. It's like trying to base your expectations for physical beauty on what you see in Hollywood.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[mcgrew]

And of course, the spelling and grammar nazi has made an error in his post!

First, it wasn't a grammar or spelling error, it was a typo, and the kind of typo a spell checker won't catch. Second, he's not applying for a job, he's educating you aliterate kids. Someone who's not stupid will take a lot more care with a job application or resume than a slashdot comment.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[ruir]

I hate to break it to you, but 15 years in the field and managin server (depends what you call managing, btw), is not "help desk". Why don't you do some certs? A CNNA or some low level system admin certs don't certainly break the bank. However, being 15 years with a "help desk" title won't help. You should have jumped companies long time ago.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[RoknrolZombie]

Well, I can maybe help you with some of your hiring practices - as an experienced IT guy who's been out of work a few times over the last few years, and have been looking to better my situation for a lot longer, I might be able to tell you why qualified applicants aren't applying.

First: Are you putting a ballpark salary in the advertisement, or is it some nonanswer like "DOE" or "Market" or "Going Rate"? Because all three of those have prevent me from submitting my resume in the past, as I'm assuming that you're just going to rape me on my paycheck. Oh, you mean I need to get a phone interview (during my workday), I need to take a day off for a face to face, and then IF I'm able to impress you enough you'll tell me that the most you'll pay me is 2/3 of going rate (but I'll get a raise in six months! pinky swear!)

Second (and speaking of pay anyway): Are you actually giving market value to your IT guy or are you underpaying him/her by 20% like most of the rest of the world? When someone is hiring me to do server work, helpdesk work, database work, managing a phone system, running backups, handling rebuilds and break/fix requests they'd better be paying more than $17/hr.

Something that companies don't seem to realize: *good* IT guys (and no, I'm not cocky enough to think that I necessarily belong to that group) are also really good at research - they HAVE to be to do their job. When I find a job opportunity one of the first things that I do is check online for the salary that I can expect to get. If that's too low, I don't apply. If I'm finding the advert somewhere like Dice or Monster, that has the ability to parse my already written resume and I'm redirected to a site that forces me to [i]manually re-enter all of my fucking information[/i] I'm also disinclined to apply for the position, [b]especially[/b] if the rate of pay is nowhere to be found. The third thing that I check is the climate of the company - do they have a lot of turnover? Are there reviews online with Glassdoor or somewhere else that can let me know *why* there's a high turnover (after all, there may be legitimate reasons...or it could be because your company has no idea how to hire competent managers)

Now, that third step is optional - if I'm unemployed and looking, that third step is nonexistent (I'd rather work *anywhere* than be unemployed. I can continue looking after getting hired, after all), but if it's a shitty company that treats its IT department like crap, you can bet your ass that two weeks after hiring me I'll be continuing to look for work. In six months I just might be out the door.

Some might be saying that I'm shooting myself in the foot by being so stubborn about this shit, but honestly, how much of my time do you need to waste just to determine whether I'm a potential fit for your company? Do you really want your time wasted by a technician that you can't afford? Do you really want to squash those excellent IT guys that just simply don't have time (by dint of being overworked and on call all of the fucking time) by making them reinvent the wheel (by manually having to enter in a resume that likely took at least a few hours to put together in the first place)? If you said yes to any of those questions then you're like most of the other companies on the planet and I've answered your question.

There's another issue that I'll mention here, although it hasn't prevented me from applying at very many jobs: Let your IT department draft the Job Posting. Having your HR department try to grok the difference between Windows and Office is painful enough, but when you have them just throwing down any buzzword that they've heard in the last two weeks you're really not going to get a very good caliber of employee.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[RoknrolZombie]

And of course, the spelling and grammar nazi has made an error in his post!

First, it wasn't a grammar or spelling error, it was a typo, and the kind of typo a spell checker won't catch. Second, he's not applying for a job, he's educating you aliterate kids. Someone who's not stupid will take a lot more care with a job application or resume than a slashdot comment.

That just goes to show how much you vastly underestimate the importance of Slashdot comments. FFS, if you're not careful the NSA will assume you went to public school.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[RoknrolZombie]

If you're hiring people that work for you because they "enjoy working for you" then you've hired a bunch of liars. I work because I want to get paid, because I have bills. I don't work to make friends. I don't work to have social hour. I work because it pays money - I have enough "fun" fixing my family computers for free.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[helixcode123]

(Replying to back out erroneous "Overrated" mod on your post.) As an over-50 software engineer I can attest I was able to find a position at my former salary within 3 weeks of a surprise layoff.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[oreiasecaman]

He was responding to himself... it's modded as "Funny" because it sure was funny btw

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[mcgrew]

I didn't notice it was the same guy, and yeah I thought it was funny, too.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[DeathToThePatriarchy]

You left out whether the job is one that is permanently open, round after round, as though new, uniquely qualified, dirt cheap talent is going to suddenly appear out of nowhere. After the third try, go back to the folk you rejected because they are female, possibly disabled, even possible an old, and stop wasting money and people's time.

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[RoknrolZombie]

That's the advanced course :p

light, tunnel, oncoming train

[Swampash]

With 10,000 Baby Boomers hitting retirement and putting their hands out for social security while simultaneously ceasing to pay income tax the IT job market should be the least of the US's worries.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[erroneus]

Baby boomers are the next "national security threat."

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[SirLurksAlot]

Exactly how many IT workers do you know who will need Social Security when in all likelihood they've been in IT their whole lives making IT money? I don't know about you but by the time I turn 65 I plan to have some kind of nest egg built up. If you're in IT you're not exactly hurting for money (or you're doing it wrong).

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have confused "need" and "want".

Of the retired Boomers I know who were the better-paid bosses of the well-paid IT staffers, exactly ZERO of them have opted out of Social Security.

Every single one of them could continue to live the lifestyles of the rich and famous without a dime of Social Security money. "But it's my damn money the feds stole from me, so I'll damn well collect it. Get the few pennies out of that pyramid scheme that I can."

Those self-entitled assclown Boomers will continue to bleed this country dry, all the while complaining about how tough things are for them and how easy things are for the rest of us.

Nest eggs or no, they'll still be a huge financial burden on our country, which was Swampash's point.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly how many IT workers do you know who will need Social Security when in all likelihood they've been in IT their whole lives making IT money? I don't know about you but by the time I turn 65 I plan to have some kind of nest egg built up. If you're in IT you're not exactly hurting for money (or you're doing it wrong).

Exactly. After 40 years, from cobol programming to strategic planning, the IT industry was very good to me. I'm sitting on $4 mill of nest egg, most of it saved from salary that IT jobs provided. I'm living off the egg now, but indeed will collect my social security in a few years - since it was billed as a savings plan 40 years ago and therefore I am entitled to it. Need is not the issue. SS is not a tax, it is an investment plan. IT isn't in the rapid growth period it once was, the medical industry is the upcoming boom, but there are plenty of opportunities for those that choose IT as a career, and don't see work as just a job.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[somersault]

Lots of people spend money as soon as it comes in. Some even spend money they don't have..

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[Antique Geekmeister]

Personally, I know many of them who will need that Social Security immediately. Some have moved fiscally up to management, and are in better shape fiscally, but many have been relegated down to "legacy support" or squeezed out of their companies to avoid retirement benefits, or have been working as contractors (which makes savings harder). Many of us were horribly battered financially by the dotcom bubble, and others by the housing market crisis where our savings and housing investments collapsed. Being out of work for a year, unplanned, while their "stock options" turned into so much wastepaper collapsed a lot of savings. It's been difficult for many of my older colleagues to keep their skills active and salaries in the middle class, especially if we lost businesses in the dotcom crash and had to start over. Others of us have invested heavily in families and communities, whether with direct finances or by doing careers that we loved, or have health issues that are eating their finances.

The combination of any or all of these has been fiscally devastating to many of my colleagues and predecessors. I've been very fortunate that my workplace values the experience and that the variety of systems we work with keeps my skills fresh. But many of my older technical colleagues have basically become unemployable, since they're "overqualified". And despite its illegality, age discrimination is still widespread, just as there is gender discrimination against hiring women who might become pregnant in IT.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[deadweight]

Doies that mean they all get sent to Cuba without trial? Let Castro deal with AARP - that'll do him in for sure - muahahahaha

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[SQLGuru]

I'm in my 40s and won't need Socialist Security for many years. I'm planning for the well to be dry (or to be legislated away) by the time I get there, so I'm putting away money on my own. But you can bet that when the time comes, I'll be claiming whatever share I'm allowed. It's *MY* money that I was forced to contribute so that it would be there for my retirement....when I retire, I want it back.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[deadweight]

Because SO MANY people just don't cash their checks????WTF????

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[Sponge Bath]

Every single one of them could continue to live the lifestyles of the rich and famous without a dime of Social Security money... all the while complaining about how tough things are for them and how easy things are for the rest of us.

Project much?

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[rock_climbing_guy]

Of course, you realize that today's politicians prefer to think of SS as a program to transfer wealth.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[sociocapitalist]

With 10,000 Baby Boomers hitting retirement every day from now until 2030 and putting their hands out for social security while simultaneously ceasing to pay income tax the IT job market should be the least of the US's worries.

Just clarifying in support of your statement

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[meta-monkey]

Ah, but you didn't pay enough. And it wasn't saved, it was spent.

Your $4 mil is not enough for you You want the "savings" you didn't save, but instead spent and spent again. Your "savings" will not come from an account reserved for you, they will come from my pocket, because they were "saved" in name only.

My generation inherits from yours a life of debt slavery. And my children, a generation of baristas with Ph.D.s, will be your servers. Enjoy your latte, boomer. You've earned it.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[div_2n]

Don't use such negative social engineering language. Those folks PAID into the system. They're taking out what they put in. And for IT workers, chances are they will not take out more than they paid in.

It's true that we are reaching a point where there will soon be more people retiring than can reasonably replenish the money being taken out. But many people totally misunderstand what that means. It means retirees will receive _reduced_ benefits -- not _no_ benefits.

Funding for Social Security could be fixed in an instant by removing the cap on income taxed for Social Security. But tax increases are scary because freedom, so it will never happen even if it's to help take care of our parents and grandparents.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[Maxo-Texas]

Um.

Hate to say this but you need to plan on 50- maybe 55.

The odds of your working in IT until age 65 are miniscule.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[Maxo-Texas]

Those who are well off will be losing 15% to 35% right off the top to taxes.
I expect changes to balance the system will raise that to 25% to 50%.

If we have a period of inflation- they'll have paid in dollars of purchasing power to get dimes of benefits.

A fifth of the boomers will do well- the rest may be looking at early death and pet food.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[operagost]

A lot of them had their retirement in 401Ks that were mismanaged, and had too much risk. If they continued to hold, their funds have now recovered only slightly above 2009 levels and thus they could be five years behind what they expected to have.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[operagost]

I'm not sure why you think it's immoral to legally collect one's entitlement. I can't help but notice that all the celebrities and politicians who say taxes should be higher still take all the deductions they can on their returns. I'd take the SS too, and donate great heaps of money to charities. The government is not a charity.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[operagost]

Since you're blaming this boomer for every government that existed while he was alive, I'll hold you personally responsible for what Obama is doing-- OK?

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[couchslug]

"With 10,000 Baby Boomers hitting retirement and putting their hands out for social security" which they paid into for decades....

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[meta-monkey]

No, but I am blaming him for liking it.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[Maxo-Texas]

This is a good point- the closer you get to the max income (about $100k in 2000 dollars), the less likely you are to collect enough.

Social security ramps up really fast- to a $60k income in 2000 dollars and then benefits increase very slowly after that. Also, it uses your top 35 inflation adjusted years. So once you have 35 years in the bucket, your benefits won't go up much either.

And if you had a decent savings, you'll be paying taxes on your social security. Those tax rates are likely to increase over the next 16 years.

You can cut the benefits for everyone making about $14k total or you can cut them for the people making a lot ($29k for social security plus over 50 grand investment income). The second option is politically feasible.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[bgalbrecht]

That's because it's always been a wealth transfer program. When it was enacted, it was designed to tax workers only the amount needed to pay for the benefits received by the current retiree beneficiaries. The program was changed in 1977 and again in 1983 to collect deliberately surpluses "to ensure solvency when the baby boomers retire". Since the surpluses were used to pay for federal deficits giving the trust fund IOUs from the general treasury, it really means that when the boomer retires, some of their benefits will be paid for by general revenues taxes instead of social security taxes.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[SQLGuru]

If I *GAVE* it to them, I would have the option to not give it. Since I have no choice, I prefer the term TAKEN. And I'm pretty sure I can do a much better job of saving than the government can. Sure, there are others that need the help, but I shouldn't be penalized for their stupidity.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[manu0601]

The social security problem is not about how many people pay, and how many people consume. It is about how much wealth working people produce, and how much wealth insured people consume.

Thanks to productivity gains, there is an easy solution to the problem: less working people produce more, and are therefore able to support more insured people.

But thanks to greedy capitalists, we do not move in that direction. Instead, productivity gains go to shareholders, who will reinvest them in financial bubbles.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[bhiestand]

Putting away money could just as well mean stuffing the pillowcase under his bed. Based on the direction this country is headed, that would be my recommendation.

Most of the people agree with you have been prophesying about inflation and hyperinflation for years. If they are right, this is about the worst thing you can recommend.

Re:light, tunnel, oncoming train

[DeathToThePatriarchy]

I am old enough that I have heard that the Social Security Trust Fund is going dry since the 70s. Hasn't yet. There are lots of easy fixes that don't hurt the poor. They could even up the payments (and not make people work until they are 70 to get a full pay-out), improve the economy, and not drain the trust fund.

where did everybody go?

[bazorg]

I saw this article headline on Feedly, loaded it, went to get a glass of water and when I came back there were only 14 comments, all under my visibility threshold. It sure looked like I was on the wrong side of the exodus.

Why the negativity for contractors?

[BlueCoder]

Being a contractor I can earn more money if I'm motivated. Work semi regularly at half a dozen businesses and be exposed to new businesses and people all the time. In good times I can choose between projects that I'm interested in doing.

Re:Why the negativity for contractors?

[macbeth66]

From my perspective, too many contractors code to get something to work and then move on. You can't maintain or upgrade their crap. At least with an employee, you can make sure they know they will have to fix or explain their crap.

Crap. What difference does it make. It all sucks.

I need more coffee. I hear there are animals that poop coffee.

Re:Why the negativity for contractors?

[NJRoadfan]

Assuming you are a 1099 independent contractor. Factor in the costs for health benefits and the fact that contractors have to pay double the social security/medicare taxes in addition to having to file quarterly taxes.

Re:Why the negativity for contractors?

[DogDude]

That's right. The contractors move up the ladder pretty quickly. The poor "perms" just sit there and rot on the vine.

Re:Why the negativity for contractors?

[mrego]

Yes, but you are a 'job hopper' with a 'contractor mentality' whatever that means (presumably it is a negative term of derision)... even if you worked for years as an employee as well. So what if you have gobs of experience at more job roles than anyone around? To recruiters it counts for nothing. What it really shows is that you are super adaptable, able to run a business and market yourself and train yourself and take care of your own travel logistics while pleasing a paying customer every single hour with the confidence that you can find future work in spite of having no job security and working under the reality that you can literally be let go on 5 minutes notice from a job thousands of miles away from home. Yet it counts for nothing to salaried people that don't have to produce each hour to doing the exact same job they've done for years. Strange world.

Re:Why the negativity for contractors?

[LetterJ]

The average employee software dev stays 23 months. Nobody is staying around to deal with the mess they make.

Re:Why the negativity for contractors?

[NJRoadfan]

Yes. Normally your employer pays half, and you pay the other half. http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/240/~/social-security-and-medicare-tax-rates%3B-maximum-taxable-earnings

Re:Don't Worry

[erroneus]

If you think you don't have a boss, then you're doing it wrong. You have many.

Government is your boss in part. Each customer you do work for is your boss.

quick calculation

[Anonymous Coward]

there's roughly 5975 days between today and 1st January 2013.

So, 59,750,000 people will have retired by then ? that's on top of the people that are already 65 years old

Quick check on Wikipedia shows that US population is estimated to be at 314 Millions people.

More than 19% of the whole population are set to retire. I wonder how this is going to impact the long-term economic growth of the United States.

Re:quick calculation

[prefec2]

You will have negative growth, especially when the baby boomers start dying and you have not a descend birth or immigration rate. In addition this only will work if you educate the additions to your population.

Re:quick calculation

[antifoidulus]

there's roughly 5975 days between today and 1st January 2013.

Holy shit, is this our first /. post from the future? Why are you speculating on what may happen, you already know. Now share!

Re:quick calculation

[antifoidulus]

He said "between", which can mean either direction.

Re:quick calculation

[SQLGuru]

Convention is to list the earliest date first and the latest date last when giving a range. "between today and 1st January 2013" would imply that 1st January 2013 is in the future relative to "today".

Re:ha...

[der_joachim]

Which country are you from, AC? I know many many baby boomers who were able to retire early, because they could speculate on the value of their houses. Nowadays, younger generations are barely able to earn enough money to pay for their houses.

Cool!

[mitcheli]

Now maybe the job market will improve! :)

Personally I prefer the dead man's shoes approach

[SmallFurryCreature]

Why wait until your boss retires... why not assist him on his way to his final reward. What do you think crawl spaces are for anyway?

And what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Got an ambitious underling? There is always more room under the office.

The only downside is getting the fingers to un-stiffen enough to sign your references. You would think that the blood and putrid remains on the resume might cause questions, but real businessmen understand. Everyone has a few skeletons in their closet.

I call bullshit

[eman1961]

First of all, there is no glut right now of competent IT workers. I have lots of buddies (most elderly, so to speak, I'm 52) who have absolutely no shortage of work. I don't see it. I am a contract worker now - bill at a greater rate than I ever have in my life, and have more work than I know what to do with. I turn down 2 out of 3 contracts. I think that people who are not getting IT work need to hone their skills until they have jobs/contracts forced onto them.

I used to work at Microsoft - I never even *came close* to being stack ranked out. I am not saying that no one was ever incorrectly ranked at the bottom, but I never saw it. The people I saw at the bottom end of the stack rank - I could see the point that the managers were making. One dude was competent, but spent *way* too much time goofing off. And while Microsoft is mostly filled with competent people, make no doubt about it, there are plenty of semi-competent people there. There needs to be a system to get rid of the dead weight.

Now granted, I am not lazy. I am versed in OO and functional programming. I have developed many large projects in JavaScript, as well as C#. I have written books, written over 1000 blog posts, recorded over 150 screen-casts, and etc. I took a job writing a large system in JavaScript without knowing the language, then taught myself the language, including the functional programming / lamda / closure aspects in 3 weeks. I was 50 at the time. So don't whine about being old and not having the skills. If you don't have them, then get them. If you have them, then you probably have work. And if you have the skilz and don't have work, then blog / screen-cast, and you will have work in short order.

Re:I call bullshit

[Maximum Prophet]

I hope eman1961 also replies because I'm interested in his answers.

I took a job writing a large system in JavaScript without knowing the language,

That was a feat considering that employers want a few years of paid experience with ANY skill. Not to mention having recent paid experience every single skill listed in the job description.

How did you pull that off? ...

The short answer is that companies look outside for Rumpelstiltskin employees, who can walk on water and spin straw into gold for pennies a day. Internal employees are expected to just jump in and solve problems.

If you are already working for a manager or have recently finished a contract for him, successfully, it's easy to get a gig by saying, "I don't know that language, but I'll learn it and finish this project on time".

Of course, I've never been a fan of the "Language of the Month" club. Why decide to do a project in a language when you can't find the people who know that language? First find good people, then use the tools they know.

Re:I call bullshit

[cyber-vandal]

Lie and then learn the language before you get found out.

Re:I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Lie and then learn the language before you get found out.

The funny thing is, I was reading Hackers by Steven Levy and Ken Williams who started Sierra Online apparently got quit a bit of work by doing just that.

Re:I call bullshit

[niks42]

Me too. By the way, I got myself a new permanent job at the age of 57, so no real problem in getting hired. I need a job to support my disabled wife, my stepson who is a bankrupt and my grandsons, as well as the rest of the family. Work has very little to do with supporting me.

Re:I call bullshit

[eman1961]

No, I didn't lie. I made no statement about my JavaScript skills before getting the job. I did make statements about being able to do the job in JavaScript. I knew about the performance gains in the V8 / Chakra JavaScript engines, and I knew that even though I would need to write some somewhat complex code, the JavaScript engines could handle it.

I got the contract for three reasons. First, I am a domain expert in a pretty technical area. I know about software development, and I am also an expert in another field. That is another story, see below. Second, through long, painful practice, I have become a good writer / speaker / screen-caster. I can present well. In the process of applying for the job, I recorded several screen-casts that explained exactly how I would go about solving the problem. Those screen-casts were sent from person to person until the entire hiring team knew that I was the right person for the job. Third, I didn't have any questions about whether I could perform. I was confident of being able to pull it off, and in fact, I certainly did do so.

About being a domain expert - while at MS, I was a 'heat seeking missile'. I would only work on hot projects, and in each project I worked on, I learned more than almost anyone else on the team about how best to work with the technology. I had one manager who wanted me to work on a 'dog' project, and I just would not do it; I switched jobs to another group that had a project I believed in. Being a domain expert, in my opinion, is the highest ROI that a developer can make. Don't just be a code jockey. Be a code jockey and an accounting expert, or be a code jockey and a construction estimation expert, or be a code jockey and a compiler expert. This is how you pull off the 'feat of getting a job writing a large JavaScript program without any JavaScript experience.'

When you are working at a company, the idea is to make your best effort to be the deepest domain expert in that particular field in the entire company. If you are in accounting, read every available relevant book on accounting. If you are at a company writing software to do computational fluid dynamics, then really understand the math, the available theories about best practices, and so on.

Re:I call bullshit

[wcrowe]

The idiot who wrote the summary used the term "glut" erroneously -- which implies that supply is outstripping demand. The word "glut" does not appear in the article anywhere. The gist of the article is that a lot of jobs will BECOME contract positions where companies want to hang on to aging and valuable workers in order to tap them for their knowledge. I think it's true that there are older workers who want to ease into retirement -- working part time to have some extra income, while avoiding the stress and responsibility of a full time job. I've already seen it in my company.

You're not going to see this in companies that are strictly technology companies, but in industries where knowledge of the business is important, and how to relate it to IT, this makes sense.

   

Re:I call bullshit

[plurgid]

Well I call bullshit on your bullshit man.
This is the same mindset as the myriad of "work at home" MLM schemes my wife has found her self wrapped up in over the years (Avon, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, Stampin' Up, yadda yadda yadda).

Yes sir! If you're a super-motivated outgoing self-promotion machine you too can earn up to* a bajillion dollars a year!

Here's a bloody obvious thing: everyone can't do that. If everyone did that, then it would not work.

It worked out for you: congratulations. That *does not* mean that it will or can work out for anyone motivated and good enough.
It means you got lucky, and you worked hard.

A hard-working, motivated, talented person is like a seed. If the seed finds itself on fertile ground, it can grow and thrive and bear fruits . If it lands on barren ground, not a damn thing is going to happen.

When you get down to it, that's the real root issue, here. There are fewer and fewer parcels of fertile economic ground in the US. Typically boomers (hell, everyone once you get past a certain age threshold) tend to think "hey I worked hard and these lazy kids ...". Your post betrays that same sort of thinking, and I'm here to tell you it's complete bullshit. The US is completely awash in talented, motivated, educated hard-working and capable young people who haven't got a place to plant their seed.

IT contract workers (especially the from-overseas variety who are willing to work for pennies on the dollar) are like an invasive species ... say Kudzu (if you've ever been to Georgia, you know what I'm talking about). It's resilient ... it can thrive in barren, low-nutrient soil where other species can't, but it does EVEN BETTER when there is good soil, so ... like I said ... drive through Georgia some time ... you'll see it covering *everything* choking out every other native species of plant.

You can self-promote your ass on youtube and blogs all day long. If everyone else is doing it to (and I'm here to tell you -- THEY ARE), then it doesn't matter at all. Who that works for is that the old guy with 25 years experience gets the job (like an old growth tree rising high above), while the youngsters can battle it out with the kudzu below.

It's only a matter of "hard work" if there's a place for you to do it. Increasingly there isn't. And I say this as one of the old-growth old guys with experience, who does many of the things you're talking about ... and who has been lucky enough to have things work out. I just have the awareness to see what's going on down below, and I'm telling you ... it wasn't like this for us when we were starting out, and if it had been we wouldn't be where we are today.

Re:I call bullshit

[Maximum Prophet]

When you are working at a company, the idea is to make your best effort to be the deepest domain expert in that particular field in the entire company. If you are in accounting, read every available relevant book on accounting. If you are at a company writing software to do computational fluid dynamics, then really understand the math, the available theories about best practices, and so on.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you were less than honest.

It's also important to be the domain expert for something the company cares about. If you are the best accountant in the world, but your boss doesn't care for accounting and would rather outsource it, you'll never be in a good bargaining position, no matter how important your job is really to the company. Even if losing you would sink the company, it doesn't matter if your boss doesn't know or care.

Re:I call bullshit

[eman1961]

Sorry, I was responding to the next post down, which said, "Lie and then learn the language before you get found out."

You are really right, you have to pick the right domain in which to become an expert. But you can use some good tools to pick the domain: how many jobs are there with that domain (the more the better), what is average salary for domain experts, and so on. Even if you are not in a good bargaining position with your current boss, you will be with the next.

The next thing is, you need to prove your expertise, and this is where blogging / screen-casting comes in. To the maximum extent permissible by your company, you have to 'give your knowledge away' through blogging etc. This then proves without a doubt your expertise. It is a new world. Those who give away their knowledge win.

I have, I think, a good nose for what a good domain is, and which domains 'stink'. You have to develop your own nose.

Retiring?!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're in tech now the geezers are finally going to let you move up by retiring.

First of all, programmers don't retire, they just age away.

Secondly, most people CAN'T afford to retire. Folks need to get this "Baby Boomers are retiring" out of their heads.

Re:Outsourcing

[CFBMoo1]

This is very true. Where I work they went through a round of layoffs and four of the eight people laid off were from IT. It wasn't new guys either but someone with +10 years and two people with 20+ years of service. The one person with 20+ years was damn lucky he got early retirement to escape the layoff. There's also all this talk of outsourcing services that we usually run in house as well.

Nice rant but missed the point.

[jasenj1]

The story is about the coming rise in contract workers. With lots of semi-retired baby-boomers around, companies will need to hire far fewer full-time employees. All the geezers will be happy to put in 10-20 hours a week with no expectation of benefits or a high wage - If they've planned properly, they have retirement income. Contract work should be a nice supplement, not their entire income.

If I'm a hiring manager, I can choose a full-time employee with required health, retirement, etc. benefits, or I can contract some old-guy who knows his way around and pay him more hourly but much less when the entire compensation package is computed.

Re:Nice rant but missed the point.

[ruir]

Meh, do you really thing that despite people being old, they are willing to put up with you, extra responsibility, work and work for peanuts? Consultants are consultants, they want to be properly and far better paid. Thats why you should keep employees around, besides having personalised assistance and better security in the long term, they are actually *cheaper* than consultants. A consultancy gig in half a year, can be 5 times the full salary of an employee. That is way people prefer to be constants.

Re:Nice rant but missed the point.

[eman1961]

Glad you like the rant ;-)

What I was responding to was the statement "If you think there's a glut of contract IT workers now, just wait.", and what I'm saying is that there is no glut. There *never* has been a glut of competent people. The summary basically says, oh no, some baby boomers are going to retire and work less and be contractors, and that if you think that the current glut (that is causing you to not have work) is bad, just you wait, because it is going to get worse to the tune of 10,000 workers retiring (and maybe becoming contractors, gasp) every day. WTF, who cares, be an employee, be a contractor, whatever, get whatever you can make the market pay, and don't whine about it. If you want more, do something about it. With regards to expectation of high wage, damn right, I expect. If someone wants me, they have to pay. If they want cheaper, I'll be happy to recommend some more junior developer. If someone else doesn't expect a high wage or benefits, and that is all they feel they are worth (retired or not), then that is probably what they are worth.

Regarding the tension between full-time employees vs. contract workers, the market will straighten this out. Adam Smith had it right. When I left (level 63), total salary plus benefits was $150k. Now I bill at a rate that is quite a bit higher per hour, even including benefits. Some people will opt for the security of having a blue badge, and consider that it is not worth the effort to be a consultant. I left behind a number of non-vested stock grants, and have since more than made up for that lost ground via higher billing.

Personally, I have a different problem. I *can't afford* to be a full-time employee. There are not many jobs that have a salary at > $200k (see the various salary surveys), and I can't afford to take a pay cut in order to be an employee. If you are going to stay at MS, even though MS pays 'better' than many other companies, it still takes a *huge* effing effort to get to >= $200k + benefits. As an aside, one of my friends (at GM level) has been at MS for maybe 20 years, and is finally at $350k, and when out drinking one night, he said that the amount of pain he went through to get to his level was so not worth it. Being a contractor is just an easier, happier life.

Re:Nice rant but missed the point.

[eudaemon]

First this is just a marketing fluff piece by some recruiter wherein he shares his fantasy that for some reason companies will lay off or let retire great swathes of workforce, and then for no discernible reason hire them back through modis so they can take a 33% passthrough cut.

Second , I hear you about contracting vs full-time. It took the .com bust combined with a down-swing in energy to force me out of a contracting for the first time since 1900. But, where I work now also doesn't keep contractors on more than a year and doesn't do business with any but a short list of large shops, all of whom want entirely too much dosh for a 1099 passthrough. So again, this guy is talking out his backside if he thinks there's suddenly going to be a sea of contracting jobs. We don't hire contractors unless we have to just because of the one year limitation. It's not enough time to teach people complex systems, get them productive and reap the benefits.

Re:Nice rant but missed the point.

[wcrowe]

You're missing the point of the article. He's not saying that companies will be hiring more contractors, he's saying that more aging workers will be offered contract work for their companies -- bringing them in from time-to-time on a contract basis in order to tap them for their knowledge of the business and how it integrates with IT. It makes sense. I've already seen my company do this.

Re:Nice rant but missed the point.

[nahpets77]

I'm sure it differs per industry, but in my area most employers want 40+ hours a week from contractors. Therefore, somebody only wanting to work 10-20 hours a week wouldn't even be considered for the job.

this is stupid

[slashmydots]

computers and the internet started to get big when these people were about 35-40 so unless they went back to college, none of those people are working in IT. I know zero people above 55 working in IT and I know quite a few IT workers in general.

Re:this is stupid

[wcrowe]

You may not be working with any of the industries that were early adopters of IT. If you were to look into the oil industry, automobile industry, government, distribution, and manufacturing, just to name a few, you would find lots of workers 55 and older.

Re:this is stupid

[Whorhay]

My Father recently retired and he was coding for mainframes as his second job out of college. I work with lots of older people who have been doing IT stuff their whole lives. Some started at banks, others at major local manufactures, and a lot were in the Military as computer operators and such. Shit, my Maternal Grandmother, who died in her 70's nearly a decade ago, changed vacum tubes in her universities computer or some such. IT work has been around for a lot longer than some people seem to think.

Another Shortage?

[asylumx]

Is this similar to the "pilot shortage" that the media has been harping about for 20 years but has never actually happened? Don't mind me, I'm just being skeptical of this one.

Let them retire!

[Sabathius]

Gen X has got this.

Re:Outsourcing

[Anon-Admin]

I have interviewed those Tata MCSE/CCIE/RHEL "certified" people. You have got to be kidding, they are useless.

RHCE who can not tell you how to change the default runlevel in linux
CCIE who does not know how to save a config in Cisco IOS
MCSE who's answer to every problem is reboot the system. (ok, that may be right, it is windows)

They dont do far more work, they work twice as hard to get 1/8th the amount done. They also have no clue on time requirements to do a job. I have a seasoned Linux person say it would take 200 hours to develop a script to do a given job. Upper management asked the Indian guy how long it would take and he said two weeks. They told him to do it, and he pumped out spaghetti code to do the job in two weeks. When I asked him how he did 200 hours of work in 80 hours he responded "I worked all night and day to get it done"

He put in over 200 hours in two weeks to get it done and management believes he put in 80 hours, because that is all he reported.

"Glut" poor choice in summary.

[wcrowe]

Saying that there is a "glut" of IT contract workers implies that there are too many in relation to demand. But the article suggests that more positions will BECOME contract positions for aging and valuable workers who want to ease into retirement.

Re:Outsourcing

[CimmerianX]

It's called a 'Paper MCSE' where someone breezes through the multiple choice certification exam and get the MCSE. People can become MCSEs by guessing right.... Hell, shady companies even sell certs outright... I've held certs, and they are good to weed out people for entry level positions.... but are useless beyond that.

I'm a retired geezer.

[BenEnglishAtHome]

My organization wanted to lower headcount, so a couple of years ago they offered early (reduced) retirement to us oldsters. I took it.

I went back for the office Christmas party last year and found I had been replaced by 3 contractors. The organization wound up spending more money to get my work done than they saved by letting me go.

Weird and stupid, but I'm enjoying my retirement.

Re:BiffSocko

[bobbied]

You will go far grasshopper.... I'm 10 years ahead of you and I can see you have the right idea...

Re:Outsourcing

[bobbied]

I hate to break this to you.. But the place you describe is DOOMED!

They are now subject to "manage to quarter" and have forgotten the long term view. Sometimes doing the right thing for the long term means added costs now. They are apparently only concerned about today and if they continue with this the long term viability of the company is not good.

Might be time to start looking elsewhere for that paycheck.

Re:Don't Worry

[HornWumpus]

You need to learn the difference between 'boss' and 'client'.

They are similar, but very different.

Re:Translations

[bobbied]

r $20/hr. ... I'm cheap."

Why YES! You ARE cheep, TOO cheap>

Sometimes you got to do what you got to do, but if you have to drop your price to $20/hour to stay in work, something is wrong or you live in a place with a really low cost of living.

Don't sell yourself short. Unless you are really an idiot (and it doesn't seem so to me) you need to start expecting better and asking your employer for more. They obviously know that the market is well above what they pay because they have a large turnover rate, yet they persist in not paying more because YOU obviously are willing to accept it. It's time you step out and at least ask them for more. You should be making $30+/hour with benefits in just about *any* location in the US, and much more than that in most locations. If they are not willing to step up, you need to step out of your comfort zone and start looking for other work.

Think about it. If the market rate is $40 and they are paying you $20 the question you need to ask yourself is "Why?" Is it that they CAN'T or that they WON'T?

If they simply *can't* pay the going rate and stay in business, your future is severely limited. The business isn't viable without you so it cannot be very solid in the first place. Unless you OWN part of the business, why are you taking the risk of it failing while accepting less than the market rate? If they simply cannot pay you more and stay in business, there is no upside for you to stay. If the business fails (which is likely) where does that leave you? Unless there *clearly* is growth potential in the business, use your experience to get a better job.

If they WON'T pay you market rates, even though they can, I've got to ask why you'd want to work for them. They don't feel the need to treat you fairly and step up to pay you market rate for your skills. I personally do not wish to work for anybody who doesn't value me and treats me fairly. I'd recommend you find another job if this is the case.

Dice's astroturf campaign for more H1-b visas :(

[echtertyp]

Dear Dice Holdings, This is getting lame, and utterly predictable. The point of a Facebook funded astroturf campaign is to be *subtle*, not blatant. Get some good K Street lobbyists, they'll tell ya how the game is played.

Oh wow, doods, another .....

[sgt_doom]

....posting from the TaTa Companies of India!

But wait ...

[aoism]

So, there was a story recently on the unhirability of geezers. Now it's that there will be a huge vacuum when geezers leave tech to retired?

Re:Outsourcing

[weszz]

We had one of those a number of years back... 10 years as a computer operator and MCSE.

For every 4 hours of work we could get out of him, it took someone 8 hours to write up what to do and how to do it. The guy struggled with cut and paste. He did braindumps and passed exams, then lost all information within a week.

(10 years as a computer operator, typing in information, never leaving the one program he was supposed to work in)

Well-paid migrants

[ogdenk]

So basically corporate America wants to take IT and turn it into a field full of migrant workers with no benefits supporting families on unsteady contract work? Along with treating them as untrustworthy as well as being an expense/necessary evil rather than critical team assets.

And they wonder why so many are leaking secrets, stealing or leaving them in a bind when they've finally had it or the contract nears its end?

advice from the fingers of a geezerette

[jess_wundring]

In cases like you cited, you may tell them, but if they're not getting it, you make your case by writing it out - all the problems with the request, in detail, covering what and why and even how, if you can manage it. And then you email it to them.

Lots of people don't really hear all that they should when others talk and everyone's recall is almost always faulty. If you give someone something that they can read over and consider at their leisure however.... I've found that its fairly easy to make a convert of almost anybody this way, as long as my reasoning is sound and they don't have some overriding goal or agenda which I'm ignorant about.