It used to be that a single mom could hop on the IT train and start out as a call center rep, then get trained within as a black box software tester, then a glass box tester (where you get more familiar with code), and then a program (er, design and development) manager.
You can't do that any more.
The kind of jobs they're hiring for now requires the kind of skills only a handfull of the human population can get into.
Web engineering? Product development? Creative and innovation services? That's highly competitive stuff, if everyone takes that as a course in college they're still only going to hire one out of ten: the best of the best. Hire mister second place web engineer or innovator and you are doomed to make a product your competition will eat alive in the marketplace. By nature these jobs can only be done well by the winner in a long line of competitors. Think: ten people and one chair in a game of musical chairs.
There is a lot of talent out there that will no longer be tapped. There are a lot of good workers who will no longer contribute to the tech industry at all because they didn't win the cut throat competition for #1 product designer; people who would be quite good at software bug hunting and even customer support. Someone is still doing those jobs, they will never be obsolete - it's just not us Americans any more.
Steve Levy is right - a lack of diversity in the job force puts you at a far greater risk during a downturn. Oh but if he had any idea how truly right he is.
Here is a clue for everyone. There is not a single job mentioned in that article that cannot be done equally as well overseas for pennies on the US dollar. As time wears on, look to see all those engineering, web engineering, product development, and all creativity related jobs, can be done overseas.
The defenders of offshoring also lie a little bit in this story. They imply that offshoring caused a rise in the number of higher end jobs. That is untrue. Technology caused that. There's nothing here that actually shows that offshoring caused a rise in higher end jobs. Offshoring or not, that was going to happen anyway. Their numbers (the replacement figures) were off, too. NetFlix was said to have 100 customer service jobs in 2000. The implication in the article is that we'd only have 100 cust service jobs in 2005. Hardly. Netflix's customer base has grown dramatically. They would have seen dramatic growth in customer service work if they hadn't, undoubtedly, gone overseas. Well, ladies and gentlemen, all I have to say to that is good luck finding a customer service rep at Netflix who will understand your English. And keep an eye on your credit report too. Whatever country whose data center is now processing your information for Netflix is not within the FBI's jurisdiction. If some goon sells your information offshore, guess what? The FBI will never have any authority to bust that sucker. You have to beg that country to arrest them. Good luck. Hope you like your rental movie.
On the other hand, rumor has it (and I cannot really substantiate this) that companies like DVD Empire outsource their customer support in the US to cheaper areas to cut costs. Again, that is what I heard from a self described employee. I say this is highly ethical.
Another alarming note? The article noted another truth: employers are now looking for Master's and PhD's. Soon you will need a post graduate degree to get into the field. What will you do when the water line moves up to PhD's? What degree is higher than a PhD?
Oh, and I forgot. This article does not mention the not so trivial percentage of lower paid H1B workers hired into silicon valley's work force.
This "solid" article is little more than a cosmic sieve with holes big enough for small moons to sift through...
That's the new face of Republican "personal resonsibility" values: if the Republicans screw up, accuse the Democrats of doing it years and years ago...
That's what the industry pretty much says right now.
Aside from Bethesda (who produces ultra fraggin mega hits like The Elder Scrolls, part 4 of which is coming out for the PC and XBox 360 soon), replay value is a joke in the eyes of game makers.
They figure that the audience for this is very small and that they can keep the hard core gaming crowd captive with re runs of Resident Evil or whatever.
Everyone watched as the super bug-ridden Elder Scrolls III skyrocketed to Game of the Year and THEN SOME, but no one saw the writing on the wall: there is a huge market for non linear play and replay value. There are still people buying TES-III and its sequels right now.
Here's an idea, guys... make a game that competes on TES's level, and sell me expansion packs. I'll be at the store every day with my wallet open and my eyes peeled. Just look at all the Neverwinter Nights expansion packs I've bought online and offline... there's another awesome game with awesome replay value.
That and coding in assembly will ensure that all games take as long as Duke Nukem to produce, and will cost more than two Hollywood blockbusters to produce... even if your coders come from a Malaysian sweatshop...
Scientists who get PhDs found a problem that seriously interested them in college, and continued to study it; generally not worrying about the money. These are the scientists who do things that really and truly matter.
These scientists then starve and die before their projects are complete... unless they a) take on a day job that distracts from their research
or
b) move to another country which values scientists more and then pays them (see: Russia after the fall of the USSR)
BTW one question... by what arbitrary standard is it uncool or unproductive for a scientist to want a good paying science job? Couldn't we also say that doctors shouldn't want to be paid for healing patients? Why not apply this to professional athletes, reporters, pilots, and so forth?
The nation that pays the most money for scientists, gets the best technology. Your results vary for each individual scientist but in the end that, along with the gift of life in a Democracy, is why Capitalism won out over Communism.
"There are alot of OSS people who would consider your statement of money really silly."
Did they go to college to learn how to code OSS projects?
Also, what jobs do you think are okay for people to get into to make money, and which ones do you think are not okay for that? Please give me your most high and arbitrary standard here...
Then we might have a few engineers who are actually worth a crap, and a salary.
Please show me some proof that the engineers we have now aren't worth a crap. I find your implications of their incompetence insulting and also highly unfounded.
I read your post. You said those who are in science/engineering for the money, should do real estate.
I am saying that is a foolish notion. People have bills to pay, you know. And if America adopts your attitude then perhaps they should move out of America to somewhere that will pay more for their knowledge.
On the other hand, someone who would have a wife like this probably shouldn't be a scientist/engineer in the first place either.
If you're a scientist of any good skill, you spend a lot of time in the lab doing very geeky things. Some scientists - one in a thousand - will attract an "I love geeks" kind of woman. The other 999 have exactly 2 choices: woo her with money, or stay single forever. Option #2 means he won't be contributing any intelligent children to the gene pool. Few options are worse for our nation and our species in general, than that.
But in America, option #2 is happening more and more. We are, after all, the nation of jocks, jock worshippers, and "My daughter turned down your honor student" bumper stickers.
"If you're in it for the money, go sell real estate; please."
Right on. Gosh darn those scientists and engineers for wanting to make a living and pay off those hundred thousand dollar student loans and have enough money left aside to convince a prospective wife to overlook his scientist-ic geekiness and marry him.
Maybe they should live in Russia where they paid their nuclear scientists absolutely nothing. If they don't like that they could sell real estate. Or, of course, sell nuclear technology to foreign powers in exchange for putting food on the table...
Honest concern for the children is one thing, melodramatic statements made to sway the weak minded (or inattentive) is another. The reality of the situation is that we have heavier kids than ever now - half-starved waifs are the kind of thing you'd think we'd be seeing out there. Well, statistically we're not.
Yes, but their health care options are dwindling, and there are a lot of homeless children out there. The "poor and fat" ones can't afford healthy food which costs more than a $.99 cheese burger. Kids need better options for nutrition.
Just keep in mind that yours is the minority view my friend - that's why we have a Rep congress and president. Do me a favor and don't change your tack - keep vilifying Bush and trying to convince the majority that voted them in that they're idiots - it's making lots of friends and working wonders for the election cycles.
Tell that to Ahhhhnuld. I believe the election year of 2005 showed Democrats aren't in the minority any more. There are 57 million of us very angry Kerry voters, and we want blood. That's why we brought Ahhhhnuld to his knees before us. And take note that the losses of support have been entirely for the pro-Bush camp as of late, not for liberals who oppose him. Ever notice how his own party faithful have problems with him now? The liberals don't have that problem; to say that our 57 million people are galvanized, is putting it lightly. You've almost COMPLETELY lost the independent vote.
And half of these Republicans you talk about, appear to be on their way to prison or buried in crippling scandals. By the time the next election cycle comes along, how many of them will even be walking free?
Now, let us demonstrate how thoroughly wrong you are. A recent February 9, 2006 poll found that 42% of Americans believe that Democrats should win the 2006 elections, compared to 34% of Republicans. Where did I get this? A left wing blog? Uh, no. It was a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll that said this. Here's the proof from the right wing horse's mouth itself: http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/poll_020906.pd f
If you can't even get Fox News to say the Republicans are favored by most Americans, you know the Republicans are screwed and that your comments were unsalvageably wrong. Democrats are NOT going to be the minority after November, and we're certainly not the minority in America.
Now as for the Dem/union support, yes, it's true, there's corruption in the Democratic party, and we certainly need intervention to keep our aerospace industry competitive. But hey, wait a minute, man, aren't you a Republican? Don't you oppose Government intervention in the market? Oh yeah, that's right, you oppose it only when it benefits us regular citizens and not some super wealthy hyperbillionaire and his world spanning corporation. Thank you very much for admitting you are a Corporate Socialist.
Oh and you and your Corporate Socialism won't last very long with all that offshoring that companies are doing. What good is it to research the latest military technology when you turn right around and have it constructed in factories in places like China? Boeing's offshoring efforts threaten to facilitate the existing pandemic of foreign and industrial espionage, seeing as its China and Moscow facilities are inherently sitting next to the home nests of some of the world's biggest scofflaws - the Chinese Government and the Russian Mafia.
Here's an idea for you. The only way you're going to see Boeing or anyone else win the economic game is to ensure that the middle class continues to grow. That might be why the Democrats support Boeing and their unions: the Democrats know better than to wipe out middle class jobs. Bush doesn't get it.
That's probably why Fox News now says the American people want to replace the Republicans in office with Democrats.
While it sees almost impossible to find postings for such jobs, I think that openings that require a college degree but do not require experience do exist. I'm such a person (BS in computer-science from a school with a famous football team, almost two years of grad-school at another state university, no significant work-experience), and two recruiters have called me just this week. I've also seen more e-mail messages about companies looking for students on the CS department's mailing list since the beginning of the year than previously, and started to get e-mail from recruiters who want my resume in MS WORD format.
Now, it's true that the phone-calls did not lead to interviews.
Are you trying to counter me here or bolster my case here???
"There were some GREAT lines like these: "They're starving the CHILDREN!" and "What about the CHILDREN?!" How Feinstein and Boxer continue to get reelected befuddles me, you'd think their screeching alone would be enough for most voter's heads to explode. I'd like to think that most of us out East just shake our heads in disbelief, but then there's Massachusetts to consider..."
Concern for the children. What an awful concept. There ought to be a law against that, darn it.
We'll call it: The Jonathan Swift - No, Seriously Amendment. or The "Let Them Eat Cake" Act.
" I don't doubt a word you say if we're talking about the *current market*, but I'm not talking about today's standards.
A paradigm shift requires that certain standards change. Jobs and their requirements will adapt to this new market. It's not like there will be zero entry level IT positions left, as mentioned in TFA there will be a face-to-face industry surviving, such as consulting. And lots of people enter that industry and get training on site from their employer."
I challenge that. Show me one job that gives training on site any more.
Experience, experience, experience. That is the issue here. Those with it, will get these jobs. Those without it, will not get hired. It's catch-22.
We are at the point now where a college degree in a related field is not enough to get you any job in IT. At this point you need experience to get hired and without experience you can't even start out.
You cannot do consulting without prior experience.
Whatever shifts are going on in the marketplace are irrelevant at this point to those who are not working in the industry yet. If you aren't working in IT today and if you can't get hired in through the back door, you will not get hired, period.
Now here's the silver lining: Look for the entire IT industry to start snapping back to America. Why? Because of intellectual property theft going on abroad, and acts of identity theft that the FBI has no hope of prosecuting because it's outside US jurisdiction. As Cisco about Huawei if you don't believe me.
If these jobs do not come back to the US you will see 2-3 generations of programmers abroad, all with every single skill and creativity point we have in America, forming their own startups and competing against American companies with their own cutting edge IP and lower prices. He is a daft fool who says that a nation with millions of IT specialists, working with cutting edge American intellectual property, cannot create their own startups with equally valuable IP at a lower price.
You may respond with "we should learn to give our employers better value than East India/China". But that too is a fool's reasoning: there is absolutely nothing we can do that they cannot learn and do, there is no value added service we can do that they cannot. Except for face to face service, of course. Mind you, when the industry ships out all jobs abroad except face to face service... then millions of people will be applying for that handful of face to face consulting jobs. What happens next is obvious.
"There is a big paradigm shift happening right now in the IT world, but I don't see it as a negative one. Things are changing and we Americans will be left with the jobs higher up in the food chain. Education replaces what we'd otherwise be left with learning for ourselves in a 9 to 5. It's inevitable and I stand by it when I say this is a good thing."
All IT jobs - all of them posted anywhere - require not only a degree, but years of experience in the field as well. Even entry level positions require this.
You will never see, in the IT industry, a job that says, "no experience, but you have a diploma? We'll hire!"
Worse yet, the IT window is now completely closed to people who just want to start out.
In the late 1990s I got a struggling single mom with no computer experience into phone tech support and then she got into software testing after a few years' experience because a head hunter found a "will train" position at my alma mater (Xerox). She's making bank now as a project manager elsewhere.
In 2006? That single mom would not have any chance to get into the IT industry.
You can't get experience without a job, and in the IT industry, no one gets a job without experience now.
If you disagree with me on this, cruise the job postings or ask your boss what they're looking for in an employee. They're looking for EXPERIENCE and absolutely no employer on this continent will hire someone without that. Period.
I know. I have spent time interviewing potential candidates for my employer. But don't believe me... ask around yourself, and check the job boards.
Also, the ACM study is wrong on another count: IT jobs aren't, according to the BLS, growing. What is growing is the service sector - janitors, waiters and cashiers.
This "growth" of the IT industry is a complete lie.
Slashdot Mirror
LOL, why can't MBA's be outsourced?
They're farming out the lower end jobs overseas.
It used to be that a single mom could hop on the IT train and start out as a call center rep, then get trained within as a black box software tester, then a glass box tester (where you get more familiar with code), and then a program (er, design and development) manager.
You can't do that any more.
The kind of jobs they're hiring for now requires the kind of skills only a handfull of the human population can get into.
Web engineering? Product development? Creative and innovation services? That's highly competitive stuff, if everyone takes that as a course in college they're still only going to hire one out of ten: the best of the best. Hire mister second place web engineer or innovator and you are doomed to make a product your competition will eat alive in the marketplace. By nature these jobs can only be done well by the winner in a long line of competitors. Think: ten people and one chair in a game of musical chairs.
There is a lot of talent out there that will no longer be tapped. There are a lot of good workers who will no longer contribute to the tech industry at all because they didn't win the cut throat competition for #1 product designer; people who would be quite good at software bug hunting and even customer support. Someone is still doing those jobs, they will never be obsolete - it's just not us Americans any more.
Steve Levy is right - a lack of diversity in the job force puts you at a far greater risk during a downturn. Oh but if he had any idea how truly right he is.
Here is a clue for everyone. There is not a single job mentioned in that article that cannot be done equally as well overseas for pennies on the US dollar. As time wears on, look to see all those engineering, web engineering, product development, and all creativity related jobs, can be done overseas.
The defenders of offshoring also lie a little bit in this story. They imply that offshoring caused a rise in the number of higher end jobs. That is untrue. Technology caused that. There's nothing here that actually shows that offshoring caused a rise in higher end jobs. Offshoring or not, that was going to happen anyway. Their numbers (the replacement figures) were off, too. NetFlix was said to have 100 customer service jobs in 2000. The implication in the article is that we'd only have 100 cust service jobs in 2005. Hardly. Netflix's customer base has grown dramatically. They would have seen dramatic growth in customer service work if they hadn't, undoubtedly, gone overseas. Well, ladies and gentlemen, all I have to say to that is good luck finding a customer service rep at Netflix who will understand your English. And keep an eye on your credit report too. Whatever country whose data center is now processing your information for Netflix is not within the FBI's jurisdiction. If some goon sells your information offshore, guess what? The FBI will never have any authority to bust that sucker. You have to beg that country to arrest them. Good luck. Hope you like your rental movie.
On the other hand, rumor has it (and I cannot really substantiate this) that companies like DVD Empire outsource their customer support in the US to cheaper areas to cut costs. Again, that is what I heard from a self described employee. I say this is highly ethical.
Another alarming note? The article noted another truth: employers are now looking for Master's and PhD's. Soon you will need a post graduate degree to get into the field. What will you do when the water line moves up to PhD's? What degree is higher than a PhD?
Oh, and I forgot. This article does not mention the not so trivial percentage of lower paid H1B workers hired into silicon valley's work force.
This "solid" article is little more than a cosmic sieve with holes big enough for small moons to sift through...
That's the new face of Republican "personal resonsibility" values: if the Republicans screw up, accuse the Democrats of doing it years and years ago...
That's what the industry pretty much says right now.
Aside from Bethesda (who produces ultra fraggin mega hits like The Elder Scrolls, part 4 of which is coming out for the PC and XBox 360 soon), replay value is a joke in the eyes of game makers.
They figure that the audience for this is very small and that they can keep the hard core gaming crowd captive with re runs of Resident Evil or whatever.
Everyone watched as the super bug-ridden Elder Scrolls III skyrocketed to Game of the Year and THEN SOME, but no one saw the writing on the wall: there is a huge market for non linear play and replay value. There are still people buying TES-III and its sequels right now.
Here's an idea, guys... make a game that competes on TES's level, and sell me expansion packs. I'll be at the store every day with my wallet open and my eyes peeled. Just look at all the Neverwinter Nights expansion packs I've bought online and offline... there's another awesome game with awesome replay value.
That and coding in assembly will ensure that all games take as long as Duke Nukem to produce, and will cost more than two Hollywood blockbusters to produce... even if your coders come from a Malaysian sweatshop...
these Octopiler coders are doing their work for the love of coding. If they want a salary for this then they're not worth their weight in salt.
[/kfg mode off]
"You are a fool if you got an engineering education and have that much debt."
Ok, that was a bit of an exaggeration. What about the undergrad pre-MS tuition?
These scientists then starve and die before their projects are complete... unless they
a) take on a day job that distracts from their research
or
b) move to another country which values scientists more and then pays them (see: Russia after the fall of the USSR)
BTW one question... by what arbitrary standard is it uncool or unproductive for a scientist to want a good paying science job? Couldn't we also say that doctors shouldn't want to be paid for healing patients? Why not apply this to professional athletes, reporters, pilots, and so forth?
The nation that pays the most money for scientists, gets the best technology. Your results vary for each individual scientist but in the end that, along with the gift of life in a Democracy, is why Capitalism won out over Communism.
The management of American car companies are responsible for that.
"There are alot of OSS people who would consider your statement of money really silly."
Did they go to college to learn how to code OSS projects?
Also, what jobs do you think are okay for people to get into to make money, and which ones do you think are not okay for that? Please give me your most high and arbitrary standard here...
Please show me some proof that the engineers we have now aren't worth a crap. I find your implications of their incompetence insulting and also highly unfounded.
I am saying that is a foolish notion. People have bills to pay, you know. And if America adopts your attitude then perhaps they should move out of America to somewhere that will pay more for their knowledge.
If you're a scientist of any good skill, you spend a lot of time in the lab doing very geeky things. Some scientists - one in a thousand - will attract an "I love geeks" kind of woman. The other 999 have exactly 2 choices: woo her with money, or stay single forever. Option #2 means he won't be contributing any intelligent children to the gene pool. Few options are worse for our nation and our species in general, than that.
But in America, option #2 is happening more and more. We are, after all, the nation of jocks, jock worshippers, and "My daughter turned down your honor student" bumper stickers.
"If you're in it for the money, go sell real estate; please."
Right on. Gosh darn those scientists and engineers for wanting to make a living and pay off those hundred thousand dollar student loans and have enough money left aside to convince a prospective wife to overlook his scientist-ic geekiness and marry him.
Maybe they should live in Russia where they paid their nuclear scientists absolutely nothing. If they don't like that they could sell real estate. Or, of course, sell nuclear technology to foreign powers in exchange for putting food on the table...
The parent post is highly underrated.
If you hate DRM so much then take action and deny the DRM mongers any money. Give more ethical alternatives your money. It's that simple.
Yes, but their health care options are dwindling, and there are a lot of homeless children out there. The "poor and fat" ones can't afford healthy food which costs more than a $.99 cheese burger. Kids need better options for nutrition.
Tell that to Ahhhhnuld. I believe the election year of 2005 showed Democrats aren't in the minority any more. There are 57 million of us very angry Kerry voters, and we want blood. That's why we brought Ahhhhnuld to his knees before us. And take note that the losses of support have been entirely for the pro-Bush camp as of late, not for liberals who oppose him. Ever notice how his own party faithful have problems with him now? The liberals don't have that problem; to say that our 57 million people are galvanized, is putting it lightly. You've almost COMPLETELY lost the independent vote.
And half of these Republicans you talk about, appear to be on their way to prison or buried in crippling scandals. By the time the next election cycle comes along, how many of them will even be walking free?
Now, let us demonstrate how thoroughly wrong you are. A recent February 9, 2006 poll found that 42% of Americans believe that Democrats should win the 2006 elections, compared to 34% of Republicans. Where did I get this? A left wing blog? Uh, no. It was a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll that said this. Here's the proof from the right wing horse's mouth itself: http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/poll_020906.p
If you can't even get Fox News to say the Republicans are favored by most Americans, you know the Republicans are screwed and that your comments were unsalvageably wrong. Democrats are NOT going to be the minority after November, and we're certainly not the minority in America.
Now as for the Dem/union support, yes, it's true, there's corruption in the Democratic party, and we certainly need intervention to keep our aerospace industry competitive. But hey, wait a minute, man, aren't you a Republican? Don't you oppose Government intervention in the market? Oh yeah, that's right, you oppose it only when it benefits us regular citizens and not some super wealthy hyperbillionaire and his world spanning corporation. Thank you very much for admitting you are a Corporate Socialist.
Oh and you and your Corporate Socialism won't last very long with all that offshoring that companies are doing. What good is it to research the latest military technology when you turn right around and have it constructed in factories in places like China? Boeing's offshoring efforts threaten to facilitate the existing pandemic of foreign and industrial espionage, seeing as its China and Moscow facilities are inherently sitting next to the home nests of some of the world's biggest scofflaws - the Chinese Government and the Russian Mafia.
Here's an idea for you. The only way you're going to see Boeing or anyone else win the economic game is to ensure that the middle class continues to grow. That might be why the Democrats support Boeing and their unions: the Democrats know better than to wipe out middle class jobs. Bush doesn't get it.
That's probably why Fox News now says the American people want to replace the Republicans in office with Democrats.
Are you trying to counter me here or bolster my case here???
I'm sorry, but anecdotes don't fly here.
I asked for proof. This should be easy to prove if you're right about your predictions and if I am wrong.
Show me the job ads that say "will train".
The IT industry is a no newcomers allowed system...
"There were some GREAT lines like these: "They're starving the CHILDREN!" and "What about the CHILDREN?!" How Feinstein and Boxer continue to get reelected befuddles me, you'd think their screeching alone would be enough for most voter's heads to explode. I'd like to think that most of us out East just shake our heads in disbelief, but then there's Massachusetts to consider..."
Concern for the children. What an awful concept. There ought to be a law against that, darn it.
We'll call it:
The Jonathan Swift - No, Seriously Amendment.
or
The "Let Them Eat Cake" Act.
Better yet, considering who we have in office now, let's call it the "But if we think of the children, how will United Airlines eat?" Act or the "Forget the Children, What About BOEING?" Act?
Oh, I know. I have a better name for what your Republican pals espouse:
They've given America the landmark "Forget the children, Leave No Investor Behind!" Act.
" I don't doubt a word you say if we're talking about the *current market*, but I'm not talking about today's standards.
A paradigm shift requires that certain standards change. Jobs and their requirements will adapt to this new market. It's not like there will be zero entry level IT positions left, as mentioned in TFA there will be a face-to-face industry surviving, such as consulting. And lots of people enter that industry and get training on site from their employer."
I challenge that. Show me one job that gives training on site any more.
Experience, experience, experience. That is the issue here. Those with it, will get these jobs. Those without it, will not get hired. It's catch-22.
We are at the point now where a college degree in a related field is not enough to get you any job in IT. At this point you need experience to get hired and without experience you can't even start out.
You cannot do consulting without prior experience.
Whatever shifts are going on in the marketplace are irrelevant at this point to those who are not working in the industry yet. If you aren't working in IT today and if you can't get hired in through the back door, you will not get hired, period.
Now here's the silver lining:
Look for the entire IT industry to start snapping back to America. Why? Because of intellectual property theft going on abroad, and acts of identity theft that the FBI has no hope of prosecuting because it's outside US jurisdiction. As Cisco about Huawei if you don't believe me.
If these jobs do not come back to the US you will see 2-3 generations of programmers abroad, all with every single skill and creativity point we have in America, forming their own startups and competing against American companies with their own cutting edge IP and lower prices. He is a daft fool who says that a nation with millions of IT specialists, working with cutting edge American intellectual property, cannot create their own startups with equally valuable IP at a lower price.
You may respond with "we should learn to give our employers better value than East India/China". But that too is a fool's reasoning: there is absolutely nothing we can do that they cannot learn and do, there is no value added service we can do that they cannot. Except for face to face service, of course. Mind you, when the industry ships out all jobs abroad except face to face service... then millions of people will be applying for that handful of face to face consulting jobs. What happens next is obvious.
"There is a big paradigm shift happening right now in the IT world, but I don't see it as a negative one. Things are changing and we Americans will be left with the jobs higher up in the food chain. Education replaces what we'd otherwise be left with learning for ourselves in a 9 to 5. It's inevitable and I stand by it when I say this is a good thing."
All IT jobs - all of them posted anywhere - require not only a degree, but years of experience in the field as well. Even entry level positions require this.
You will never see, in the IT industry, a job that says, "no experience, but you have a diploma? We'll hire!"
Worse yet, the IT window is now completely closed to people who just want to start out.
In the late 1990s I got a struggling single mom with no computer experience into phone tech support and then she got into software testing after a few years' experience because a head hunter found a "will train" position at my alma mater (Xerox). She's making bank now as a project manager elsewhere.
In 2006? That single mom would not have any chance to get into the IT industry.
You can't get experience without a job, and in the IT industry, no one gets a job without experience now.
If you disagree with me on this, cruise the job postings or ask your boss what they're looking for in an employee. They're looking for EXPERIENCE and absolutely no employer on this continent will hire someone without that. Period.
I know. I have spent time interviewing potential candidates for my employer. But don't believe me... ask around yourself, and check the job boards.
Also, the ACM study is wrong on another count: IT jobs aren't, according to the BLS, growing. What is growing is the service sector - janitors, waiters and cashiers.
This "growth" of the IT industry is a complete lie.
think "laptop theft insurance". :D
Ok, correction, why not disable USB mass storage?
And my workplace still uses PS/2 mice and keyboards.
What business needs to allow its employees access to a USB port?
I'm not saying none do... but I work in a b2b company and we don't need it.
It's amazing how people like you become sheep at the mention of "trusted computing".
"MicroSoft save us!"
Benjamin Franklin had something to say about people like you who trade away freedom for a sense of security...
battling a whole army of ostriches.
How can he win?