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The Almighty Buck IT

IT Salaries to Grow 0.5% in 2005 407

Posted by CowboyNeal from the more-in-the-pocket dept.
halfacrayon writes "According to Robert Half Technology 2005 Salary Guide, average base pay for IT professionals overall will rise 0.5% in 2005. Data security analysts will command the highest salary (up to $93K), while system auditors will enjoy the highest increase compared to 2004 rates (5.1%). IT instructors are holding the bottom spot in terms of gross revenues (salary could go as low as $43,250) and business systems analysts will barely notice the increase of 1.9% that they should expect in 2005."
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IT Salaries to Grow 0.5% in 2005 More

IT Salaries to Grow 0.5% in 2005

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  • Screwy economics (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SilentChris ( 452960 )
    I work for a company that consistently gives 4% a year. Last year I made considerably more with a salary adjustment. Is this not the norm?

    • Re:Screwy economics (Score:5, Informative)

      by shawn(at)fsu ( 447153 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:35PM (#11426594) Homepage
      I should forward this story to my boss. Then again since I work ar EDS I'm just happy to be one of the contracts thats not NMCI [nmci-eds.com]

    • Re:Screwy economics (Score:3, Informative)

      by phaetonic ( 621542 ) *
      I think the norm, at least for people who do billable work, is to get a pay raise based on their billable hours, or get a decent base pay plus bonus based on performance.
    • That would make sense since cost of living is around there (3% I think) but with a study like this there would be many other factors, especially across an entire industry. Some of these might be like the value of the dollar, outsourcing and the turnover rate for the positions. wish i could read the fine article though - they might even explain it in there :)

    • Re:Screwy economics (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Xerp ( 768138 )
      Wow. You get a pay rise every year! The norm for our company is to get a review every year to first of all see if anyone gets a rise at all. Most years we don't. Last year I was lucky and got 3%.

      The company I was at previously did give a rise every year, but more of the order of 7-10%. On top of that we had quartely bonuses of between 1 and 2 thousand. One year I got a rise of seven thousand, with bonuses totaling nearly the same amount.

      Why did I leave the previous job? Why, why, why..

    • I stopped at a hi-tech job fair today in Los Angeles. Most of the recruiters with whom I spoke told me that their management is currently exporting most of their information-technology (IT) jobs overseas. The most popular destinations are India and China. What is interesting is that the job tables (at the fair) having Indian immigrants tended to praise the benefits of offshoring to India. Meanwhile, the job tables having Chinese immigrants tended to praise the benefits of offshoring to China.

      Even more

    • I work for an IT company with only two letters in it's name.
      This is my story, salary wise, over the last 4 years.
      First off, there was a global freeze on salary increases (supposed to have been only short term)
      Then, some part of the company (and the outsorced contract we worked for) lost a fair bit of money, so we were asked to "work half an hour less a day" and cut our wages by about 12%.
      Then after about 4 years working through an agency, I was absorbed into the permanent workforce. As a result, my oncall r

      • Re:Screwy economics (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dnoyeb ( 547705 )
        In the USA, any phrase issued by a company including the word 'freeze' immediately red-lines my bullshitometer. Its just another way of saying, were only giving it to our friends and relatives now.

  • Half by Half (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:33PM (#11426564) Homepage Journal
    Not surprising. Where I work people only seem to get pay increases by moving up the ladder, there's been no COLA of any sort for a few years. Other places I've worked in the past 10 years have only mustered 2% if anything at all.

    That, however isn't just the IT depts but entire organizations, with the notable exceptions at a few places where executives cut nice retro-active deals, even as the ship was foundering around them.

  • How do the /. feel the US job market is going these days?

    As someone who recently explored the UK market, it seems like there are a lot of options for programmers here. What makes the US so different?

    • Re:US Job Market (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ravenspear ( 756059 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:38PM (#11426624)
      As IT has matured it seems that the people who stand to gain are those already employed in the field. Lots of people on here will tell you there are no more IT jobs available in the US, but that is just plain wrong. Check any of the jobs sites or staffing firms and you will find plenty listed. However, most of those are looking for experienced professionals who have several years experience working in industry. If you have that, there are plenty of opportunities out there.

      What more people usually bitch about is how the relative difficulty of entering the field has increased for newcomers.

      • Re:US Job Market (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tsugumi ( 553059 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:49PM (#11426731)
        What more people usually bitch about is how the relative difficulty of entering the field has increased for newcomers.

        Right... it's gotten harder to waltz in to an industry with very little to bring to the table. I interview a lot, predominantly grads into a fortune 100. It has gotten *easier* to hire people who are good, not because the market is saturated, but because I am getting less people who are pursuing a career in IT purely cos they think it will make them big bucks. I don't want those people, I want people who are interested in what they do. Otherwise, ultimately they are wasting my time, and their own careers. They won't stay long, and they won't enjoy the time they do spend.

        Taking some of the "glamour" out will be better for the industry, and it will be a better fit for the people who choose to do this. Money is, or should, be a secondary concern for everyone involved - there are bigger priorities here.

        • Taking some of the "glamour" out will be better for the industry, and it will be a better fit for the people who choose to do this. Money is, or should, be a secondary concern for everyone involved - there are bigger priorities here.

          I don't agree. See, I think the computer industry is one of the most demanding (in many ways -- not all). People who have the dedication to work in the industry and do well want the same things that everybody else wants. To expect them to take a vow of poverty because "ther

          • Re:US Job Market (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Tsugumi ( 553059 )
            I'm sorry, but I work crazy long days, do stressful work, and don't get paid *nearly* as much as the people who are actually performing business roles (I work in the financial sector, not a tech firm). But jeez, even if I just look at professional jobs, doctors and teachers do have it much worse, get less pay, are in more demanding positions, and imho do more good.

            But that aint my point. I'm in IT cos I enjoy it. I'm a technologist, and I'm fascinated and motivated by what I do. Money isn't irrelevant,

    • Re:US Job Market (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cubicledrone ( 681598 )
      the US job market is going these days?

      Imagine dropping a 100 lb. block of lead into a toilet.

      W-4 employment is obsolete. Business insisted it be that way.
    • I don't know about the US in general, but IT people in Utah seem to struggle with the market here.

    • Re:US Job Market (Score:3, Informative)

      by Iffy Bonzoolie ( 1621 )
      Ok, sometimes IT includes programming/development, sometimes IT is maintainance, support, and administration. Which is it? When they say IT salaries are increasing, what do they mean by IT? Can we come up with some more accurate terminology? As a software engineer, I usually am categorized into Engineering, as opposed to IT - but there seems to be no consistancy.

      Regarding the US job market for programmers - there seems to be jobs here in the Silicon Valley/SF area, but they just put you through a ringer
    • From a business perspective a lot of companies seem to have lost their way recently. Even IBM, which in the past has had a very strong sense of direction where all the employees worked toward the company's common goals, seems to be suffering from this malady somewhat. I'm not sure what's causing this. Perhaps the customers aren't being as forthcoming about what they need anymore. Perhaps we've already picked all the low-hanging fruit. Perhaps the old guard are losing their relevance and are soon to replaced

  • In other news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:35PM (#11426595)
    Home prices have increased 40%, inflation is over 3% and despite the tax cuts, about 1/3 of the average paycheck goes to taxes of one kind or another.

    One step forward, Chapter 7 steps back. Thanks boss.
    • Inflation is not "over 3%". The government doesn't include things like gas, food, health care premiums, and housing in inflation calculations - so it's definitely much higher than 3%.

      • Re:In other news (Score:3, Informative)

        by Ra5pu7in ( 603513 )
        Inflation for the year 2004 is given based on the Consumer Price Index from the Labor Department. Excluding energy and food, it was 2.2%. Housing alone was listed at 2.5% for the year and is included in the reported 2.2%. Energy is what caused the spike that averages overall inflation to 3.3% - alone it makes up for a 16.6% increase. With overall salaries (in all industries combined) making for only a 0.5% increase, most of us are paying more this year than last - and not earning enough to make up the di

  • Too bad for you (Score:5, Funny)

    by Moby Cock ( 771358 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:38PM (#11426619) Homepage
    Unfortunatly inflation is around 2%, so you are all going to get a little poorer.

    • Careful! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rackhamh ( 217889 )
      I know the parent is a joke, but it's important not to confuse average pay increase with your annual raise amount. It's possible for the average pay to increase only 0.5%, with most people getting 5% raises.

      Fictional scenario
      -------

      Before:
      Employee 1 - 10,000/yr
      Employee 2 - 20,000/yr
      Employee 3 - 300,000/yr

      After:
      Employee 1 - 10,500/yr
      Employee 2 - 21,000/yr
      Employee 3 - 300,150/yr

      In this case, the two worker bees each got a 5% raise, while the mega-rich CIO got a measly $150 (it's an improbable example on
      • In real life though, the CEO probably tripled his salary while the thousands of employees took a cut. Hence the average 0.5% raise.
        • Could you give me some real life data to corroberate your claims? Or is this an example of real life speculation designed to support an inherently emotional world view?
          • Not at 3:20, however there have been numerous occurences of CEOs getting huge raises while simultaneously lowering wages or laying off hundreds or thousands of workers.

            It has happened a lot here in Europe and I don't see why it wouldn't in the US.
            • Fair enough.

              Although I definately think that the high-ups in a corporation should be the first to accept a salary reduction, the numbers don't add up to any signifcance. Meaning, if I drop salaries $5,000 a year for 2,000 workers, and give myself and my 10 colleagues a $50,000 raise, I've saved the company $10 million and taken away $500 thousand.

              In other words, it can't be said that I'm lowering people's salaries to give myself a raise.

  • Too many security analysts. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Storage being cheap these days, It has gotten so bad when all these companies store info on their own servers and hire people to make sure it's secure, and then the companies fuck it up later anyway. It'd be better, and overall cheaper, if there were a few security storage companies handling all your info. I would put more faith (well, a little more) in a company whose business model surounds being a secure storage company, rather than have my data secured as a precautionary afterthought of most companies

  • Only in major cities (Score:5, Interesting)

    by shuz ( 706678 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:40PM (#11426641) Homepage Journal
    I am a Linux Systems Administrator of 20 machines for a small time company in a small town of 50,000(which is the county seat). I command a salary of $28,000 and I am told to like it. A combination of corporation in big cities and the economy drive the average wages. Unless my current town is so drastically different these wage studies must only take into account large cities of 100,000 or more.
    • Dude, you need to move. Seriously. You should be making 2 times that, more so since you are a linux admin.

      • Re:Only in major cities (Score:4, Interesting)

        by shuz ( 706678 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:53PM (#11426772) Homepage Journal
        *sigh* agreed. My programmer and graphic artist are all in the same boat. The current fear though is that I'll never again be able to have full control over all the aspects of my jobs, systems, security, and networking. I get to dabble in being a mail admin, cisco admin, DBA, WebAdmin, perl guru, shell scripting guru etc. I am worried that by leaving I'll get a much better paying job but that I'll need to start from the bottom again and do more mundain work of creating users all day. I am also forced to learn very broad topics every single day. Something that I am told doesn't happen in corporate america. Though I think the loss of control and general paranoia is the biggest thing keeping me from leaving. Also I have only seen about 5 systems administration type jobs in Minnesota in the last 3 months. I swear that the jobs still are not out there!
        • Stay there for a couple of years, learn one hell of a lot and get a ton of skills. Then leave. Think of it as investing in your future. Learning a lot now so that you can score that big job down the road.
      • You should be making 2 times that, more so since you are a linux admin So why should he be paid more because of Linux? Isn't the TCO of Linux supposed to be *lower* than other operating systems, particularly Windows? Everyone knows that system administration accounts for far more cost than the initial purchase price of the operating system and now you're saying that Linux administraton should cost more? And, yes, he should be making more than 28k. Significantly more. It amazes me how cheap companies c
        • You're forgetting the productivity of the Linux admin. They can administer more servers than can Windows admins, especially when comparing servers of similar productivity. This is of course an average estimate, but the inherent networking of Linux means more admin (probably all) can be run over the network in batch and scheduled, rather than using the console. So paying a Linux admin more, to do a lot more, contributes to the lower TCO. Linux is not unique; most large or complex organizations have long pref
      • Living in major cities costs more. Sure, he could probably make twice as much in Silicon Valley--but he might well have expenses so much higher than he'd actually end up with less money left over.
    • Your "small town" of 50,000 would make it the third largest city in my home state. The county seat of my home county, which is geographically twice the size of Rhode Island, only has 1,500 people.

      That said, I don't think that, in a similar position if it existed there, the salary would be any less. You are almost certainly getting hosed, but with IT unemployment as it is you probably can't really threaten to leave and expect a raise. That's how economics work, and sometimes they suck.

      Incidentally,
    • What about un-employed hackers?
      five percent of zero is still zero.
      Damn you Bush for making me work for a living.
      http://www.wom.cc
      Proud Owner!
      Peace.
    • Gov't jobs are low pay, especially state and local. Some Fed jobs are pretty well paying. there are probably some other opportunities in a town of 50K, but probably not many Linux ones. I live in a town of 110K, mid-america, and work in a town of about 1/4 that, but it's a worldwide company that happens to have a dev office here. (btw, I make about 2.5 times that as a programmer with about 9 years exp.)
    • Small town living has it's advantages, trust me! I work for a huge mega-corporation near a big city, who's IT department is so under-staffed that we don't have time to make necessary system improvements or update our skills. Anything more than emergency security patches and software upgrades is a luxury right now. At last count, I was administering a mix of over 60 Windows, Linux, and AIX servers. I get paid a lot better than you, fortunately, but the cost of living is so high that do litle more than break

  • It won't get better for awhile (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shamashmuddamiq ( 588220 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:41PM (#11426660)
    The problem with most companies is that they learn to be miserly penny-pinchers when they go through bad times, and it's something they get used to and never grow out of. Even when things get better, salaries, bonuses and benefits often *don't* (except for the upper management, of course).

    I like the company I work for, but unfortunately, I may need to go someplace else if I want my career (and salary) to advance...

  • Oh boy, we almost got that keeping up with inflation thing LICKED! w00t!

  • Other things that to grow in 2005 (Score:4, Funny)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:43PM (#11426681) Homepage
    The national debt
    The interest we will have to pay on the national debt
    Inflation

    So basically you can think of an average 0.5% growth as your petty little cost of living increase. Enjoy the Bush tax cut while you can because as he spends like a crackwhore with a stolen credit card, each person's "share" of the national debt will blossum. that means a bigger budget every year and eventually taxes will have to go up big time to keep the leviathan from choking on its own excess.

    How about this. Why don't a bunch of IT companies set up shop in Costa Rica and pay their employees to move there? The advantages are enormous. Cheap cost of business, you're close to America, exotic location for the young employees (and exotic women for the young geek men ;) ) and if everyone goes expatriate, the tax benefits are totally worth it.
  • Anyone got a mirror?

  • Very happy in Canada (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:48PM (#11426722)
    I'm doing pretty well north of the border. Lost my job on Xmas day 2003 and found my next gig in March 2004. With a 25% wage increase :-)

    Most of my peers (experienced J2EE developers) make at least CDN$75K and I clocked CDN$90K in 2004. All this in one of the cheapest provinces (Nova Scotia).

    Canadian wages are very decent compared the the cost of living here. I used to work in the UK and despite making more money there according to the conversion rate, the purchasing power of a CDN$ is just so much greater in Canada that it felt like getting an 80% salary hike.

  • IT salaries devalued by outsourcing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by andrewzx1 ( 832134 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:50PM (#11426738) Homepage Journal
    One of the affects of IT outsourcing is a downward pressure on US IT salaries. With many IT jobs going overseas the affects are multifold. the jobs that are sent overseas creates a surplus of workers here in the US, and so workers don't have to offer premium salaries to fill positions, they can offer less.

    The indirect affect is that the perception of value of the IT work is lessened as well. Managers and owners hear that overseas IT workers will charge much less, so outsourcing is always an option if salaries rise too much. They will bring this up in salary discussions.

    I had a future career as an IT worker/manager. I decided the future was bleak enough to get go back to school and get a Master's degree in management, not IT management. I now know enough about planning, finance, reporting, cost structure, leadership, supply chain, knowledge management that I can feel confortable mooving into another field.

    Which is sad because I love IT. But I don't want to be around when all the jobs disappear. Like what happened to textiles, aerospace, and manufacturing. Sometimes its good to hedge your future.

    Good luck everybody.

    • I'll throw in one other factor. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Thursday January 20, 2005 @09:02PM (#11426864) Homepage Journal
      If you lose enough of the low-paid jobs to India, the average salary goes up, even if nobody who stays employed ever sees another cent.


      For that matter, if you lose all of the low-paid jobs, and cut everyone else's salary by less than half the difference, the average salary STILL goes up.


      The US has outsourced a LOT of the lower-paid jobs, but relatively few of the higher-paid ones. To achieve a paltry 0.5%, there must be an unbelievable downward pressure on wages. And both bosses and the Government will be keen to see that figure stay low, as it will reduce the inflationary pressures.


      The days of "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work" have passed, and everyone is joining in the game of massaging the statistics.

    • Which is sad because I love IT. But I don't want to be around when all the jobs disappear. Like what happened to textiles, aerospace, and manufacturing.
      I work in electronics manufacturing, and the jobs haven't all disappeared. Although, you can't just pick up "PCB assembly for dummies" manual and expect to get in. If you're motivated and dedicated then the jobs are there. There are also advanatages for a constricted job market:
      1. Your coworkers are talented and really want to be in that field. You do

  • look elsewhere (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @08:51PM (#11426748) Journal
    I think I would like to survey IT salaries of other universes [slashdot.org] at this point. Maybe in another universe the damned Brits never touched India, and they instead speak vietnamese in reverse or whatnot.
  • Salaries grew 14% in 2003 [bbc.co.uk].

    Summary: Indian workers are doing great, American corporations are doing great, American workers are doing lousy.

    Oh and tech companies are still lobbying hard for more H1B visas.

    • Oh and tech companies are still lobbying hard for more H1B visas.

      That's because they can lie through their teeth and we don't do anything about it (collectively). In a world where labor and brains are cheap and plentiful, the political game is the only thing left to keep us from spiraling down into 3rd-world terms. We better learn to fight fire with fire.

      • H.R. 5413 (Score:2, Informative)

        by esanbock ( 513790 )
        Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) introduced a bill to reform the H-1B visa program titled the "Defend the American Dream Act of 2004". His strong letter to the editor of the New Jersey Herald indicates that the bill will be re-introduced in the 2005 Congress. I can't recall the last time I have read a written statement from a public official that was so highly critical of H-1B.

        To review the American Dream Act follow these instructions:

        1) go to http://thomas.loc.gov
        2) enter H.R. 5413 into the search engine

        Pascre
    • If you're an American IT worker you hope that offshore salaries and buying power (from the weakened dollar) will increase to near parity with the US, when comparing similarly skilled workers. The other equilibrium scenario is much worse.
      • true, except for the fact that India and China have such huge populations that the equilibrium point will probably be their average standard-of-living rising a little bit while ours falling dramatically.
    • Whoa, hey, hey, hey. Don't blame India for doing well. Blame America for being a capitalist country, where profit is valued over its citizens livelihoods. India is doing what's right for itself and it's turned out incredibly well for them. Good for them. Perhaps America should figure out how to improve its own situation rather than blaming everyone else for the mess it's gotten itself into.

      H1Bs fit very nicely into a capitalist society, where the goal is to attract talented workers from all around the
  • So some lucky bastard brought up the average with a whopping 1% increase.

  • Does IT include progammers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LS ( 57954 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @09:02PM (#11426874) Homepage
    Because $93k doesn't seem that much for a top notch programmer.

    LS
    • Because $93k doesn't seem that much for a top notch programmer.

      $52,500-$83,250 for a programmer according to the article. Hell, they have a B.A. down for $56,000-$80,500 which is basically the same range. I've never known a B.A. to make anything above the low end of that range but I also know programmers who make above the top end of their range.

      I see no info on what kind of sampling they did to make these projections.

  • Source? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by c0d3r ( 156687 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @09:13PM (#11426957) Homepage Journal
    The source is robert half technology. They are a head hunting firm that agressively robs its consultants. I think they just want to pay less to engineers so are posting these bogus rates. In the silicon valley you can add 20k to each one of those numbers easily.

  • Good news (Score:2, Funny)

    by sl4shd0rk ( 755837 )
    for the 73 IT people left in the United States

  • Not too bad... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 )
    A 0.5% isn't too bad. At the last company I worked at, my boss gave me a $0.05/hour increase and he thought that was a big deal. He got mad when I reminded him that the company five years ago -- under better management -- routinely gave me 40% raises.

    Anyway, I found out his nickel was bigger than mine since he was able to build a house on the coast when most people couldn't afford to buy a house in Silicon Valley.

  • Should read: "from the LESS-in-the-pocket dept." (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Money for Nothin' ( 754763 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @10:09PM (#11427437)
    IT salaries to rise 0.5%? That's great...

    ...until you factor in inflation, to get the *real* salary growth rate, rather than the nominal rate.

    Consumer price inflation (CPI) is around 3.26% [inflationdata.com].

    Basic microeconomics (the Fisher Equation [about.com]) says you take the wage increase rate and subtract the inflation rate, in order to get the real wage growth.

    0.5% - 3.26% = -2.76%

    So, assuming your wage increases with this 0.5% rise, you're still not increasing your pay enough to outpace inflation. This means your real purchasing power will be decreasing this year, by 2.76% if the figure above remains anywhere near accurate.

    Salary rising by 0.5% this year? Quite a shitter, if you ask me. But, of course, it could be worse (we could be seeing negative growth).

    (The data security guys still come out ahead though: 5.1% - 3.26% = 1.84% real pay increase. At $90k/year, that's another $1656 in purchasing power they can afford, in real terms.)
  • Stop posting forcasts of incredibly low pay figures. Only put rosey forecasts out so my boss will give me a better raise.

    Why do you think the raises get low? They read the pessimistic journals.

    Blah.

  • What about support workers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ToadMan8 ( 521480 ) on Thursday January 20, 2005 @10:24PM (#11427526)
    There is no mention in the article about wages for support workers - I am a support analyst at a medium-large (17,000 undergrad) University and they are doing a wage study - I wonder if I'll be making more than I do now. We have lots of money at the University. We don't just do support either; we do project work too and clean machines / administer Perfigo, etc. Any ideas what the average wages of us is?
  • ...an entire R&D department was staffed in Bangalore for the price of a new microwave oven.

    Kinda hard to compete when lunch a Whopper costs more than an average daily salary over there.

  • Salaries are only increasing 0.5%, which means they aren't even keeping up with inflation.

    In other words, IT salaries are actually dropping in that they're not keeping up with the ever-increasing cost of living.

    In other words, start typing your resume and get ready to train your Indian replacement hired under the pretext of a "labor shortage."
  • Our salary's keep rising around 4-6% a year but our company is not union, but if they killed our raises especially since were extremely profitable unions could get a toehold.

    I for one am against our company unionizing it would only ruin the apmosphere.. glad I'm in Texas where it's right to work.

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