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US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Programmer Jobs Will Decline 8% (computerworld.com)
theodp writes: Two weeks ago, as the nation's schools 'taught kids to program' with an Hour of Code, Microsoft and others celebrated a 6-year lobbying effort that culminated in the passage of legislation that made Computer Science a core K-12 subject, which the software giant said "will advance some of the goals outlined in Microsoft's National Talent Strategy." But on Tuesday, Computerworld reported that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has put somewhat of a buzzkill on the learn-to-code party, saying IT jobs will grow 12% over the next decade, although computer programmers will see an 8% decline. "Computer programming can be done from anywhere in the world, so companies sometimes hire programmers in countries where wages are lower," explained the government. The silver lining is that software developers, the largest occupational group in IT, will increase by 17% or 186,600, over this period. The nomenclature here is a little muddy, since "programmers" and "software developers" are often used interchangeably. Here's how they're distinguished in this article: "Programmers are focused on coding and implementing requirements, and that’s why they may be more susceptible to offshoring, in contrast to software developers who may be more engaged with the business, analyzing needs and collaborating with multiple parties."
Short term, I guess its time for any remaining "programmers" to change their titles to "developers"...which is probably what's really driving the "growth."
>> software developers who may be more engaged with the business, analyzing needs and collaborating with multiple parties
In other words, don't ever let anyone figure out what exactly you do, and make sure you're attending more meetings than actually working. Mission accomplished!
During that same time period, secretarial jobs will likely see an 8% drop in demand, but administrative assistants will see a 17% increase!
If there's going to be any hope for the American working class we're gonna need to get over our childish "I can make it on my own" attitudes and bring back organized labor and the power and protection it offers. It's ridiculous to think we as individuals can effectively bargain with mega corps. John Galt is a child's daydream...
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The BLS is confusing Software Developer with Systems Analyst.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Given the distinction described, programmers being just implementation and 'developers' actually understanding the needs and wider context, programmers really should be on the decline, and there shouldn't be room for a 'software developer' to need 'programmers' as time goes on.
Already the divide has been largely responsible for some of the most infuriating software I've had to use. The people actually creating it have no clue about the wider context. Meanwhile you have 'architects' that don't know the first thing about how the code works or can work or most critically how it wouldn't work. Somehow enterprise industry has latched onto the model of 'architect' versus 'implementer' and never shall the two cross and it makes for some terrible software.
Sometimes it makes a mountain out of a molehill (don't need a massive team to maintain what amounts to be a simple script, and often giving it a massive team makes it senselessly more complex) and sometimes it does address some issues of tedium associated with a genuinely complex project. For the first part, people should not confuse 'importance' with 'complexity'. People presume that something very important warrants a large team, which is often wrong. For the latter, the large team may be warranted, but no coders should be exempt from understanding the context for their work. I've seen that last bit happen all the time, to the point of bad coding decisions resulting in the programmer resenting the paying customer for what ultimately is the programmer's lack of understanding the use case rather than the customer 'not being smart enough to deal'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Everybody tried outsourcing and realized that it doesn't work. Creating a great product requires creativity and each contributor capable of saying no to superiors and standing up for their improvements to the solution. This mind set does not yet exist much outside Silicon Valley, let alone USA and huge lifestyle disparity between american bosses and outsourced coders would not allow it to flourish.
By the time developing countries have the kind of talent in greater quality/quantity than US, labor will not be that cheap anymore because employees will know their worth. At that point, I will just move there.
Why are you guys trying to create more coders with your new K-12 core subject? All that shit is being off-shored now. And thats before you look at the H1-B situation. You'd be better off flipping burgers. lol
Am I a programmer? Am I a Software Developer? Maybe I'm a Software Engineer! Maybe a software architect... honestly I can't tell anymore
Great to see the 5 year plan to increase the number of programmers is already paying off. Time to push for more STEM.
Forgetting 'programmers'/'developers' for a minute - contractors and consultants are leading market indicators since their demand peaks during market instability (both growth and contraction). And, IMHO deep embedded work is a leading indicator for the manufacturing sector since they produce hard goods such as appliances and infrastructure. That said, hourly rates are off FY2000 highs by 40% and are flat since the mid 90's, and there are almost no positions open. The only exception is medical devices where there seems to be a bit of a bubble happening, but the financing for the companies hiring is all highly speculative VC and hedge funds, which is a red flag if you expect a gig to run more than a few months. The contract agencies that place workers are compensating for the fewer positions by increasing markup, from as low as 20% on corp-to-corp basis to upwards of 40%, which they can only get away with by submitting cheap inexperienced workers and marking them way up, which seems to work since hiring managers are more likely than not to be clueless to what the job actually requires, which is in part due to hedge fund weenies placing line managers with inexperienced cronies or cheap imported labor.
The view from down here is there was no recovery from 2000 or 2008, there is no recovery on the horizon, R&D infrastructure is being dismantled, manufacturing is gone, and the engineering job market is in a luge-ride race to the bottom. There's a little money to be made picking the bones or sucking up health care dollars or green energy dollars or whatever is fashionable enough to attract foolish greedy investors, but long term it looks bad to me. I'm getting out... buy into a wood pellet fab or something else that will do well when everyone becomes poor.
Well, legally speaking, that should not be the case. There will be 8% less jobs that are currently going unfilled because of lack of domestic workers.
I'm sure that you know well that there are ways to prevent domestic workers from being able to get the job so they can use cheaper H1B resources.
It's not uncommon to tailor-make the job description and application requirements to fit the candidates from a foreign staffing company supplying H1B applicants.
But something as simple as "must be proficient in [insert language] for efficient coordination with outsourced development" will also do.
No, Sexconker, it's the H1-B workers who are cash cows for asshole U.S. corporations who keep firing U.S. workers and hiring them, so they can make more money off of destroying the middle class in this country.
This is why you must vote for Bernie (if you're a liberal) or Trump (if you're a conservative). Clinton, Bush and Rubio want exactly the same thing which is to make their corporate masters richer while gutting the middle class. When Disney was laying off their entire IT department and forcing them to train their H1B replacement workers, whose campaign do you think Disney was funding? Hillary and Jeb's. Not Bernie or Trump: Disney hates these guys.
24 year old, 1 year of experience, bachelors degree in computer science, in a small city in NYS north of NYC. I applied to 10 software dev jobs 4 months ago. I received 8 offers. I am absolutely no one special. My skill set isn't better than anyone else, my degree isn't from an overly prestigious university, etc.
I understand my experience is anecdotal. But, your analogy doesn't hold up either. If anything a recruiter wants to make you think you have no options, and that you aren't special, so they can negotiate your wage down and make you take their crappy 6 month contract position in Looky Lew, west virginia,
The BLS stats miss the point.
1) The ability to off-shore programming jobs has been a reality for 20 years. It's done nothing but increase my bill rate. Here's the deal. Accenture, IBM, Wipro, etc come in to take care of all the IT needs. On paper the costs are cheaper. Five years later the companies that did off-shore development are typically very unhappy with their work product. Too much re-work, not enough velocity of code getting into prod. Once a offshore company has your entire IT process they can turn the screws and increase bill rates.
I come in with teams that kick out the off-shore units, clean house and usually within a year the problem we have is our backlog doesn't have enough work. We're just too efficient. The reason it's increased my bill rate is companies pulled back from college hire programs. It really creates a problem keeping experience developers in the pipeline. I don't have much competition domestically because the ivy league MBAs that decided to offshore decided not to invest in the next generation workforce. I laugh all the way to the bank.
2) Start Up Factor. You don't need to get hired to make money programing. There are hundreds of thousands of developers making money by releasing their own apps.
That's not always true. For example, I was on track to become a licensed professional civil engineer, but bailed to become a software "engineer" because the pay is much better. (Hopefully I might still be able to get my PE license since I work on CAD/BIM/structural analysis software and my supervisor is a PE, but I'm not sure.)
IMO, the real strategy is to take advantage of the high earnings while they last, live frugally, and retire at 40 or so.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I don't want to be rude, but there's always plenty of junior positions everywhere. You can't really measure the job market by the average number of offers a newly minted graduate has. Even in a somewhat stagnant market, the companies will hire junior people and fire them after a few years to keep the average wage down, so new positions are always available.
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.