IT Workers Cushioned From US Economic Downturn 357
DontLickJesus writes "According to the AP, technology has been the least hardest hit by the U.S.'s recent economic downturn. Quote: '"Overall technology employment is up in America and the wages associated with it are up," said John McCarthy, a vice president with Forrester Research.' The article goes on to say that companies realize the worth of their [IT] staff. This paired along with a recent article regarding the value of data centers when selling a company leads one to believe that the business world, while historically not fond of IT workers, is showing its true opinion of the sector."
I disagree (Score:1, Interesting)
Bubblenomics (Score:5, Interesting)
Because our economy appears to be driven by bubbles after the 1970's, different recessions seem to sock different professions. Programmers got hit in the 2001-2003 poppage. This time finance people are getting smacked by bubblenomics.
We all get our turn.
Re:Lingering Effects of 2001-2003? (Score:5, Interesting)
During the dot-com downturn, most businesses just let the existing software run as-is, without adding features. Thus, they only had to pay for skeleton-crew maintenance, not new features. Whether this is the best strategy or not profit-wise, I couldn't say. But it's what companies actually did regardless of merit.
Note that new features generally takes some up-front investment, and if you are in financial hot-water, you don't spend for such projects because the company may not survive long enough to see the up-front investment pay off.
Smarter companies would sock some cash away so that they could get new technology while techies are cheaper. Instead they usually wait until the middle of a boom and then whine to congress that they need H1B's.
Re:I disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
But most special apps are not designed to work this way. We find that Cytrix is still buggy technology. Graphics-intensive apps are also poor ran remotely. It's a great dream, but we are not there yet.
I disagree as well (Score:4, Interesting)
I disagree with you.
Helpdesk has nothing to do with it, on the base. You forgot that cost of living varies drastically across the entire country.
$12/hr might be survivable in Virginia or Texas, but in Chicago people have a hard time surviving on $18-20/hr.
When the cheapest food to survive a day runs around 1-2$ (thus about 4-6$ a day foodwise) and gas runs almost 4$, trust me that 12$/hr helpdesk job will not keep people afloat, even if it was $12/hr cash.
Don't forget that employers employ people to make a profit, not a loss; thus $12/hr is probably turning about$20-50/hr profit.
Helpdesk itself varies from company to company. I know on mine some ofo the employees are borderline retarded and helpdesk has to show them anything more complex than what a mouse is.
Why pay another company? Well, ever heard of Unisys? Lets just say you pay for what you get. Those suckers can barely speak english, and about 1 in 20 of them are competent. Their managers are good IT helpdesk. The rest don't understand you, don't listen, don't know how to do their job, and good luck understanding them.
Guess how many companies offshore to unisys? Tons.
Re:The future of America is in tech education (Score:4, Interesting)
We have the smart people. We just need to find a way to encourage them to go to school, if they haven't already. But when people look at their older more experienced peers losing jobs, and salary levels staying flat or going down, they look for other career paths when they are at that age where the choices are easy. If over the next N years, all those older peers were hired back and a true shortage of people came to exist (as opposed to the fake ones being promoted by certain big companies to sway Congress to allow them to hire cheaper workers from overseas), then younger people would be seeing technology as a rewarding career path. It's all about confidence in the future, and businesses are not putting that in IT right now.
Re:Experience brought us where we are today (Score:5, Interesting)
That is an absolute lie.
John McCain has been nothing but a cheerleader for the Reaganomics that has caused this debacle. He's been for privatization, deregulation and tax cuts. In fact, there's a video going around on YouTube the last few days where John McCain is giving very energetic (as much as he can be energetic) support for the privatization of Social Security.
Even someone as far conservative as George Will today has said that John McCain has just been an utter failure on economic issues and has done nothing but sputter and froth when we really need someone who's going to be a little more thoughtful. If you don't believe me, go watch the video of today's This Week on ABC. Listen closely to what George Will says.
Sarah Palin has become little more than a circus sideshow. She's actually become the candidate (out of the main four) with the LEAST approval. She slid 10 points in public approval in just three days last week. There is evidence that having her on the ticket is losing votes for McCain in more than one swing state. His Hail Mary Pass has fallen incomplete. Now that the convention "bump" after the RNC Crystal Night has passed, all the polls are trending Obama, including the most important electoral college numbers.
My only fear is that the only Hail Mary pass that the GOP has left requires a body count.
By the way, did you know that on Sept 18, just a few days ago, George Bush extended the national state of emergency that he put in place on Sept 23, 2001 for another year? Go to whitehouse.gov and look at the daily press releases and executive orders for Sept 18. There it is, big as life. Who even knew that we have been under a state of emergency since 9/11?
Re:Experience brought us where we are today (Score:5, Interesting)
A few phrases that should never be uttered again in American public life:
"Free Markets"
"Deregulation"
"Privatization"
And the name "Milton Friedman" should be never be spoken in business schools again, except to show just how wrong someone can be. Turns out "Free Markets" were nothing more than a mechanism for squeezing wealth out of the lower 95% of the population and pouring it into the pockets of the top 5%.
It's amazing how suddenly socialism looks good when rich guys are looking at losing a lot of money.
I truly hope that whatever bailout package gets approved includes some very punitive measures for the Wall Street CEOs and CFOs who got into this mess. Anybody who stands to gain from this bailout should be forced to go to the same credit counseling classes that regular people who file bankruptcy must attend. Also, several hundred hours of community service would also be appropriate.
Do you know that the executives from Lehman Brothers and AIG are still going to take home multi-million dollar bonus packages this year?
Yes, I'm talking about Class Warfare. As Warren Buffet famously said: "There's Class Warfare, and my side is winning." In fact, it was the rich and the GOP who declared class war on the rest of us back when Ronald Reagan took office. Well, now it's time to show them what it feels like to be in a war.
Re:I've been wondering (Score:2, Interesting)
$300/week?!!!!! Holy cow! I consider a $30 month to be a heavy month.
Re:Cusioned? (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, actually, it would be a lot more coming out of his ass if they didn't bail them out. I don't know when people will ever look at the big picture but Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held almost half of the national debt in unsecured security with government backed loans supporting them. This translates to a real world 30% or better of GDP that was about to be yanked out from the economy with the Government stuck flipping the entire bill.
You can point finger to who is behind it all you want, here is a hint, it isn't because of any one president's economy policies. This has congress behind it just as much and as far back as 2005 some in congress were sounding the alarm and met with resistance. Look at senate bill 190 in the 109th congress and when it was resubmitted as Senate bill 1100 in the 110th congress if you have any doubts. It seriously looks as if there was a plan to let the groups dive just for political posturing but when you look at who was getting campaign contributions from the two Government Sponsored Enterprises, you will see it was more of a lobbying thing then a political posturing thing.
I'm not going to name names or party affiliations. If your interested in doing more then bitching about something, I gave enough information for anyone to find out about it. And yes, we are talking players in the up coming presidential election too.
What debacle? (Score:4, Interesting)
John McCain has been nothing but a cheerleader for the Reaganomics that has caused this debacle. He's been for privatization, deregulation and tax cuts. In fact, there's a video going around on YouTube the last few days where John McCain is giving very energetic (as much as he can be energetic) support for the privatization of Social Security.
Yeah, a bunch of banks have failed and some people are losing their homes that they couldn't afford, but:
a) The commodities sectors are doing well. If you work in farming, oil, coal, iron, copper or gold, then, those sectors are all doing very well. Even the moribund alternate fuels sector is shaping up in spots. Biodiesel maker Nova Biosource Fuels is actually running its Seneca refinery profitably and if it gets some financing, this penny stock is going to absolutely kick ass.
b) Now we find out that IT workers are doing well. In fact, it looks that like that Lehman's data center is going to be purchased by Barclay's more or less intact. Not only that, but Intel and Microsoft, both industry leaders, are not only making record revenues, but Intel is actually paying dividends.
c) If we turn to the housing situation, we find, shockingly, that more people in the USA actually own their own homes than ever before. In short, despite the banking losses and the bankruptcies, at the end of the day, a bipartisan policy designed to encourage lending to put as many people into homes as possible actually WORKED.
The tell tale sign of a real recession or economic downturn is high unemployment and falling commodities prices. Neither has taken place. Instead, what we have is moderate unemployment and high commodities prices and this suggests that demand is high, rather than low.
Now, I don't doubt that some people are hurting in this economy but those people tend to be concentrated in blue states that have been stupidly run for way too long. Michigan's government has basically made it all but impossible to do business in that state and Ohio is as nearly as incompetent and corrupt, particularly in the manufacturing centers and Democratic bastions of Cleveland, Toledo, Akron and Youngstown. Red states, on the other hand, big producers of food and fuel, are doing rather well.
Bottom line is, this economy isn't falling apart, and never has been. Instead, wealth is shifting from those who make raw materials and products from those who make up financial services around them. WE have lived a lie that said that a bunch of paper is more important than the coal that it represents and it simply isn't true. Bush's economic policies have worked, free trade has worked, and if the market has decided that a program that does something with a car is not as valuable as the steel that makes it well, you are just on the wrong side of reality.
The irony is that Obama's policies are actually going to shift this economic advantage to red states any more. Bush's economic policies, at the essence, have allowed the market to refocus on the basics of materials and manufacturing as the value drivers of the economy. When Obama goes and enacts all sorts of environmental legislation, he's only going create even more scarcity. Suddenly, that old copper mine in Arizona or dying oil well the gulf are going to be even more valuable than it is today, when you can't get permits any more for a new one, and yes, those states that push back more against the Obama administration are those states that are going to have the biggest advantage, economically. They will make more, while the blue states make less, and as a consequence, they will wind up with more money. The future is passing from Chicago where the corn is traded, to the belts where the corn is made, from New York where the cars are traded, to the south where the cars are made.
Re:Read again confused one - Democrat and Republic (Score:3, Interesting)
My real bitch is that over the last 20 years of predominately Republican control they have encouraged this insane business model of "don't worry, fuck up all you want, commit whatever crimes you need to maximize your profit, we promise not to step in as long as you make it worth our while". Not that Democrats are off the hook for this crap mind you, but it was predominately Republican approach to not getting involved at any cost. Now, the house of cards is collapsing and the Executive branch is acting on its own buying out all these companies. (Quick history check...go look up that form of government that involves the government owning all the businesses...they are definitely earning their colors as the Red Party with the secret laws, secret prisons, warrantless spying, voting problems, and now government owned business). Also, as previously mentioned, Bush was acting on his own as of 2003 to try and remove the regulations that were in place that were supposed to help prevent this meltdown, when he started positioning the Fed for this bailout it became clear that they could go balls the the wall and if they failed they would get a bailout package from the Fed and all would be ok. He poured on the gas and started smoking until it became that burning tower you mention.
These assholes have murdered almost every conceivable form of science and demonize intellectuals. This includes their apparent piss poor understanding of economics. I want to slap these assholes every time they say lower taxes to increase revenue. While it can most certainly increase revenue if you are on the correct side of the maximization curve, it most certainly does not work if you are already below the revenue maximizing number. Oh...that and it doesn't fucking matter if you maximize revenue if you spend more than the difference between the previous spending and previous revenue point.
Re:Experience brought us where we are today (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a british scientist that has a video floating around that shows the progression from light sensing to eyeball very well with example critters all along the way. So that irreducible complexity bullshit is a complete joke. In fact, Ken Miller has an amazing 2hr presentation on the whole Intellitent Design where he absolutely eviscerates their silly arguments, and is a Roman Catholic, so it science and intelligence goes beyond religion.
The God discussion belongs in religion and philosophy classes, not science classes. The evidence for "poof magic" is 0, so even though evolution can't trace the exact path for every critter that walks the earth, it at least has evidence.
What she and every other creationist wants is creationist bullshit treated like it is even remotely equal to scientific theory. They tout the "its just a theory" crap because they don't understand the definition of a scientific theory. Even if most kids laugh it off, the fact that they put that shit in the class causes the assumption that there is anything more to it than silly superstition and intellectual laziness.
I'm sorry, but my version of "God" is a hell of a lot more complex than rolling up some playdough snakes and saying "Bamf" its done.
Help-desk, $12 an hour pay, etc. etc. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not just Phoenix that's struggling. I have a friend in Portland, Oregon who is moving to where I live (St. Louis, MO) because she works in I.T. and can't find a job anywhere out there.
She said HP and Intel both have big layoffs either planned or in progress, and Nike is moving an entire facility out of Portland and overseas (S. Korea or something like that?). The only jobs you can find there right now are "day labor" types of things. Unemployment is something like 12% overall.
Here in St. Louis, I guess we look "good" by comparison, but we've recently had our "world headquarters" Anheuser Busch brewery bought out by the Belgians. Boeing seems to be continuously downsizing. Our Chrysler plant just closed up. Reuters' presence here has been dwindling. A.G. Edwards got bought out too. Meanwhile, I'm watching people going back to our area colleges and universities left and right, because they can't find a job and they decide they may as well just "take out a student loan, go back to school for a while, and hope it helps them get something better after they get back out".
We have a lot of help-desk type positions available here, thanks to businesses like Convergy's, who run 2 big call centers, and telcos who run others around town. But last I checked? Even $12/hr. was pretty optimistic for those positions. They're just "revolving door" jobs paying more like $8-10/hr. in many cases. Our cost of living might not be nearly as high as on the coasts - but I still can't imagine how anyone is able to live on their own at those wages here!
Here in St. Louis though, I often see this odd disconnect with reality. Typically, you'll have a married person who can't understand why a single person with a kid or kids wouldn't just "go work at place X" that has "openings right now paying $12 an hour". Obviously, they're too used to their 2 income lifestyle to realize that $12/hr. means scraping by in poverty level conditions if that's your sole source of income.
Re:Read again confused one - Democrat and Republic (Score:3, Interesting)
Now to be fair...I think it needs different government involvement, not less, not more. Where the government needed to be involved early in that crisis it wasn't (thank you Republicans), and the areas where it was it shouldn't have been (thank you Democrats). I do believe there are a great number of areas where there needs to be regulation, the problem is that we will NEVER get the regulation we need so long as we have lobbyists for every special interest group under the sun greasing the palms of those congress critters. What we wind up with is broken ass loophole ridden nonsense that favors whoever paid the biggest sum when the law was written.
Re:I disagree as well (Score:3, Interesting)
Er, why not?
12$ an hour = 24,960$ a year.
According to http://www.paycheckcity.com/netpayhratescalc/netpayHRatescalculator.asp [paycheckcity.com]
That's 19,292 a year, 1607 a month.
6$ for a food a day is 180 a month. We'll say 200.
Gas is 4$ a gallon. We'll assume you run an economical car and not an SUV. 208$ a month.(12 gallons a week, times 4$, 52 weeks, divide by 12 months)
800$ for power, heat, water, and place to live.
Looks like we're at 1,208. Toss down a 300$ a month for your cheap car payment and insurance and you're still 100$ under the wire.
And that's if you do nothing else but that one 12$ an hour job. I have one official job, one side job, and I'm working on opening up a online store.
Oh really? IT workers in US are safe? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then why are mega corporations pushing to raise the cap on H1B Visa IT limits [internetnews.com] if they "love" us US Citizen IT Workers?
I've been out of work since 2002, and many other IT workers I know have moved on to non-IT work as all companies in our area are hiring are foreign IT workers via H1B Visas. I have been turned down for thousands of IT jobs because I am not a foreigner that is willing to work for minimum wage or almost minimum wage via a H1B IT Visa. I'd have a much better chance if I renounce my US citizenship and apply for citizenship in an Asian nation and then apply for an H1B Visa application and then I'd have a 100% chance of being hired as an IT worker in the USA. Of course it would be for a fraction of what I would be paid as a US citizen, but most of us have been out of work for so long, we start to get desperate. :)
Re:I disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said, I believe you when you say you are having a hard time finding programmers of any sort as I have been interviewing candidates for months, for all levels of experience, and have yet to find even a single person worth extending an offer too.
Re:What about the American component of IT workers (Score:3, Interesting)
Companies can get workers from other countries IF American workers cannot meet the demand.
The demand is $1/hr tech support people that double as the billing department and moonlight as coders. Americans cannot legally fill this role in America for that price.