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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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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.
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
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.
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.