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Programming The Almighty Buck Technology IT

Programming Jobs Losing Luster in U.S. 856

Posted by Hemos from the chicken-little? dept.
alphapartic1e writes "Yahoo! News writes "The U.S. software industry lost 16 percent of its jobs from March 2001 to March 2004, the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute found. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that information technology industries laid off more than 7,000 American workers in the first quarter of 2005. Gartner researchers say most people affiliated with corporate information technology departments will assume "business-facing" roles, focused not so much on gadgets and algorithms but corporate strategy, personnel and financial analysis. "If you're only interested in deep coding and you want to remain in your cubicle all day, there are a shrinking number of jobs for you," said Diane Morello, Gartner vice president of research.""
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Programming Jobs Losing Luster in U.S. More

Programming Jobs Losing Luster in U.S.

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  • Imm. Req!!! Sr. Software Engineer - INDIA (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:26AM (#12862413)
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  • I could have told you that back in... (Score:4, Funny)

    by MisanthropicProgram ( 763655 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:27AM (#12862423)
    2002.

    Hey! Maybe I should start an IT consulting company. I'll call it the "Smart-Ass Group"!

    • Re:I could have told you that back in... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:30AM (#12862448) Homepage Journal
      Unfortunately Gartner has beat you to the punch!

      Anything with the name "Gartner" in it automatically has a taint(not the area between a man's genitals and his anus, though that may be an accurate description of Gartner). It's just hard to swallow their credibility. They seem to keep on coming up with research that says, "Offshore everything! oh and by the way, we just happen to have a large offshore consulting division, what a coincidence". If they are a research firm then they should stick to just research, anything else tarnishes their credibility....

  • In summary (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dawnread ( 851254 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:27AM (#12862430)
    There are people as good as or better than you who'll do your job for less. We used to think we could 'add value' by being better than the 'code-monkeys' abroad, but I don't think this is any longer the case.

    The short future is projects managed in US but implemented abroad - the far future is too scary to think about at all - they're gonna take all our jobs :(.

    • Re:In summary (Score:4, Informative)

      by MisanthropicProgram ( 763655 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:34AM (#12862479)
      The short future is projects managed in US but implemented abroad

      I would change that to the "immediate future"

      The Indian firms want to climb the "food chain" and go after the higher margin business. That includes PM, design, and even outsourcing everything. Eventually, as wages come into parity with the US (theirs goes up, ours go down), they will have to outsource the coding to China or any number of developing countries that are trying to get onto the off-shoring bandwagon.
      While I was in B-School, we had a lot of folks from developing countries. Just about everyone of them said that their Government has some sort of program that trains and subsidizes IT with the hope of having work from the developed world sent to their country.

      Yes folks, you were right! It's a race to the bottom!

      • I don't know if you noticed the dollar dropping (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:55AM (#12863263)
        That's the race downwards.

        e.g.

        http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=U SD&to=INR&amt=1&t=5y

        The dollar has lost around 20% of it's value against the Indian Rupee over the last 5 years. Americans are now 20% cheaper to employ compared to Indians than they were 5 years ago.

        That trend's going to continue until it isn't worth offshoring anything anymore. In the meantime the US standard of living hasn't changed much. The Indian standard of living has increased substantially, it'll continue increasing and they'll continue getting more expensive.

        China is a problem. The problem with China is that they fix their exchange rate to the dollar.

        Compare the Chinese chart with the Indian chart:

        http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=U SD&to=CNY&amt=1&t=5y

        This is why all the manufacturing has headed to China, guaranteed lower costs, for as long as the exchange rate is fixed.

        You say they'll just offshore to the next cheapest country, well it's not that simple, language and education are huge barriers. The Indians have the language thanks to the British Empire and they have the education, it's easy offshoring there. The Chinese have the education but not the language, offshoring service jobs there is far more difficult. Most of the other developing countries have neither.

        The key will be to get the Chinese government to allow the Yuan to float on international currency markets. International pressure on China to do this is rising.

        • The American standard of living is changing rapidly, it's just not quite as visible as it could be yet. Right now we're having problems with people in early life not being health insured, next it will be people in middle life not being health-insured, and unable to begin saving for their kids to go to college, last it will be old people without health insurance and young people without education, and uh.... yeah, that's a bad thing. A very bad thing. The US economy and quality of life don't look that bad

        • seed corn (Score:5, Interesting)

          by zogger ( 617870 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @10:46AM (#12863743) Homepage Journal
          The US standard of living hasn't changed a lot but it will *sometime soon*, and that's because the US consumer (and government for that matter) has been on a massive credit binge. Credit based on equity in their homes primarily. There's a reason that the congress lately passed a law severely limiting bankruptcy for private individuals, and that's because these credit issuers smell it coming, bigtime. it's just math after all..

          A lot of people now are so strapped, but still wanting to maintain an illusion of prosperity, that they have no principal mortgages,and are only paying interest in perpetuity on those notes hoping that sometime they can sell out and still make something, and that is only because of the unrealistic bloated housing bubble.

          The old expression "eating the seed corn" when starving people ate the seeds they needed for next years crop in thew winter, is also similar to a blue collar tradesman pawning his tools on friday night. Rich for the weekend, come monday he's hurting, then no way to go from there, no work. We've pawned our tools by offshoring still useful jobs. We (the fatcat bosses "we") are in that "rich for the weekend" phase right now. That's our economy, and they keep destroying or transferring wealth producing jobs in exchange for wealth re-arranging jobs.

          It is unsustainable in the medium and long term, and it will cause a severe economic crash, especially once the flight from the petrodollar picks up more speed as masses of foreigners realise that they will get stuck with worthless paper IOUs. But the people (high level business leaders and politicians) doing it could care less, they will have gotten theirs ahead of time and probably look forward to being mega-rich in a US reduced to second world nation status, as they can enjoy the lifestyle they now have to travel overseas for, ie, the ultimate power over other humans lifestyle, with all that that entails.

          That's my take on it anyway. It's planned to happen this way on purpose.

          • Re:seed corn (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Tangurena ( 576827 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @11:34AM (#12864209)
            A few months ago, there was a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal about a shortage of machinists in the US. They were hyping a shortage of Swiss-style machinists. Those are guys who make tiny parts. Small enough for watches which leads to the name. It takes about 10 years of apprenticeship for a machinist to get proficient in this type of machining.

            What most readers of WSJ are woefully ignorant of is that most companies require machinists to own their own tools. Not the multi-hundred thousand dollar CNC machines, but the general everyday measuring instruments, clamps, jigs etc that can add up to $20,000 to $50,000 of tools over a lifetime. When these guys retire, part of their retirement income comes from selling off their tools. When they get laid off, many sell off their tools as well. Just like car mechanics, machinists have a huge investment in their own tools.

            So all the guys who know how to do this stuff are retiring, or were laid off when their jobs were offshored. Even if we as a country somehow woke up and paid attention, it will take a decade or two to recover from our current insanity. It is the same with engineering and software development.

            The Ant works hard in the heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

            Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he either dies out in the cold, or begs and receives humiliating charity from the ant he teased

            As a country, we seem to be taking the Grasshopper approach to life, instead of the Ant approach. We've combined the eat the seed corn along with the naked emperor approach. However, we've also adopted the "why do you hate America so much" mantra when anyone points out the nudity of the emperor.

            • Re:seed corn (Score:3, Interesting)

              by CthulhuDreamer ( 844223 )
              "So all the guys who know how to do this stuff are retiring, or were laid off when their jobs were offshored. Even if we as a country somehow woke up and paid attention, it will take a decade or two to recover from our current insanity."

              I am one of those laid-off machinists. Fifteen years of training, and they pack the plant up and send it overseas. The few remaining manufacturing positions left in the states go to the cheap 18-year olds who just finished a six-week training program - the experience

          • Re:seed corn (Score:3, Interesting)

            by SparafucileMan ( 544171 )
            not sure that's entirely true. yes, there is a housing bubble, purposefully caused by the fed to prop up spending after the equity bubble collapse, itself caused by the desire to keep gold low (strong dollar policy)... but i'm not sure what you mean by "petrodollars."

            if saudi makes more money cause oil goes up, they just end up spending more money on u.s. corporations to build things in saudi. now, if they spent that money on japanese firms, we'd be fuxored. but *shrug* i don't see that happening ;)

            as lon

          • Re:seed corn (Score:4, Informative)

            by LesPaul75 ( 571752 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @03:40PM (#12866546) Journal
            Wow. Right on. I've been ranting about how this housing bubble is going to burst any day now, but I never made the connnection with offshoring. Makes sense.

            I live in the South Bay area, which is the poster child of the housing craze right now. The median home price is now somewhere around $700K. And note that that's not new homes, just homes in general. Every month or so I see a new giant subdivision of townhomes being built with two bedroom, two bath, attached, cookie-cutter homes starting at $650K. And I've actually gone to talk to the people in the sales offices in these places, purely out of curiousity... I just ask the obvious question: "How are people affording these $4000 to $5000 per month mortgage payments?" I mean, I make a fairly good salary out here, and I couldn't even come close to that. Even if I were married and my wife was also making $100K, it would still be a stretch to make house payments like that.

            So their reply is that people are taking "interest only" loans. Interest only loans on $700K houses!! Are these people out of their minds? Basically, they're gambling. They're risking every cent they have in the hopes that their houses will appreciate over the next few years, and then they can sell it. And what if it doesn't appreciate? Guess what! The bank is still going to want that money that they loaned you. Yeah, remember? You were only paying the interest on the loan, so you still owe them 100% of the principle, which is the better part of a million dollars. What's that you say? You can't afford to make the payments, and your house is now worth less than the amount of the loan? That sucks.

    • Re:In summary (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zero_offset ( 200586 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:50AM (#12862608) Homepage
      There are people as good as or better than you who'll do your job for less.

      In my considerable experience with the matter, "as good or better" is almost never a consideration. It is entirely a cost-driven decision.

    • Re:In summary (Score:5, Informative)

      by Teckla ( 630646 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:10AM (#12862790)

      There are people as good as or better than you who'll do your job for less.

      This is largely a myth. Take India, for example. They're scrambling to meet the demand for software developers. As a result, universities are graduating woefully bad software developers. Indian consulting firms are grossly exaggerating the qualifications of their employees. It's like the 1990s were in the U.S., except much, much worse.

      Companies who buy into the offshoring hype deserve what they get, which is, more often than not, terrible results.

  • Perspective (Score:3, Insightful)

    by saddino ( 183491 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:28AM (#12862434)
    "If you're only interested in deep coding and you want to remain in your cubicle all day, there are a shrinking number of jobs for you," said Diane Morello, Gartner vice president of research."

    Actually, if this describes you, and you are creative and business savvy to boot, then you are perfectly suited for starting up your own software business.
    • my project in B-School was to write a business plan for a software firm. In short- the margins are soooo low now, it wouldn't be worth it. And considering that the barries to entry are so low, even if came up with the killer app, you'd have competition overnight or be crushed by the big boys who have the deep pockets to tie you up in court for a decade while you try to enforce any patents you may have - and you fade away with legal costs.

      Sorry, I'm incredibly negative towards the IT industry right now. I

    • Re:Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

      by room101 ( 236520 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:44AM (#12862554) Homepage
      I beg to differ. This is why I haven't started my own buisness yet (this and being risk-adverse). I would spend too much time messing around with business crapola, which is what I don't like. I just don't see how you could have a successfull small business without selling your "product".

      The only reason I can (mostly) do this ("deep code" and stay in my cubicle all day) is there is someone down the hall selling our "product".

      I wish/hope I am wrong.

    • Re:Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mfh ( 56 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:47AM (#12862578) Homepage Journal
      "Actually, if this describes you, and you are creative and business savvy to boot, then you are perfectly suited for starting up your own software business."

      I'm a programmer, like many of you. I develop my own Open Source systems and have done so for the past five years. After being shut down by employer after employer for stupid reasons, I finally got smart about it.

      My last experience was the clincher. This company will remain anonymous because they are dirty enough to go after me and tie me up in court if they ever found out I was talking about them negatively. They hired me as a full time contract employee to develop a project management system for them and some other projects like an online mapping system. They started me at contracting wages which are a bit higher than full-time-contract wages -- for the reason that I would be paid more frequently and would not have to wait so long between paycheques if I took full-time-contract instead of contract. Like many other fools out there, I took a pay cut and they paid me more frequently -- for a while. I traded my value for job security. DUMB MOVE!!!

      They laid me off when I finished my project and their cheques continued to bounce until I finally managed to certify the last one a full two months after I was laid off. My employer knew all along that I would be sacked on completion of my project, so it was intentional.

      So how do these companies expect us to handle this? We are going to get smart and we are going to get powerful until we can do as we please. Vocation == Vacation. :-)

      So I guess you can say I was left with a bit of an edge after that experience.

      We all need job security and that sort of thing for our families, but we also need to create that security ourselves -- nobody is going to do it for us.

      My Ace of Spades is to have a project going that is mine alone and fund it through my own employment and extra-curricular activities.

      I've switched to full-on entrepreneurial activity with a NEW company.

      I am being paid right now to provide solutions to the company I work for and yet the company has signed off that they will not own the solutions but that they will be able to use them in their current state -- FOREVER.

      They are okay with this because they can get me a lot cheaper than if they were to actually OWN the systems I build. Exclusivity is expensive and I have told them that if they want to exclusively own my project they will have to come to the table with a very big offer. Huge offer, I said.

      What they really wanted was to have solutions to problems and with my troubleshooting experience (10 years), I am able to help them and they are able to help me. Symbiosis!

      Are you unemployed or just ready to do something special with your talent? I want to talk to you [mailto].
    • Canned Software makes no money today. If you do custom applications you might do better. But then that is a lot of buisness work. And for all this buiness effort you might as well be more invoved in the companies buisess and less time in the cubicle.

    • Re:Perspective (Score:3, Interesting)

      by crazyphilman ( 609923 )
      Here's a much better idea: start up a large number of small micro-businesses. What do I mean? Simple. Create small, individual niche products and sell them via the web. Then, sell tie-ins, like swag. While you're at it, start writing books about the tools you used to create your niche products. And on the side, do tech support in your neighborhood. Pick up surplus computers, fix them up and sell them at a small profit, or combine them with open-source software to help small businesses get computerized.

      If y

  • Gotta love Gartner! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder which company paid for Gartner's study. The software industry is just waiting to drop wages for programmers, I bet.
  • If you're only interested in deep coding and you want to remain in your cubicle all day there are a shrinking number of jobs for you...

    But if you want to become a sailor and program from a cubicle hundreds of miles out to sea... your set! [slashdot.org]

  • Because all that matters... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Microlith ( 54737 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:30AM (#12862454)
    is middle management. Everything else can be outsourced.

    Entry level positions aren't necessary. Knowlege of how computer systems behave and are operated isn't necessary. Intelligence isn't necessary.

    All you have to know is how to play petty office politics and sell people on useless shit. And run an office (either well or poorly.)

    • Entry level positions aren't necessary.

      So is middle management willing to pay extra tax so that recent graduates who would have otherwise taken entry-level positions can go on welfare instead?

    • All you have to know is how to play petty office politics and sell people on useless shit.

      Actually, the part in bold is the only necessary part. Without sales, you don't have a business. With sales, you can figure the other stuff out.

      Peace be with you,
      -jimbo

  • changing roles (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cat_Byte ( 621676 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:32AM (#12862463) Journal
    Gartner researchers say most people affiliated with corporate information technology departments will assume "business-facing" roles, focused not so much on gadgets and algorithms but corporate strategy, personnel and financial analysis.


    I thought this happened years ago after the .com bubble burst. I've been working multiple role positions with lower pay since the end of the Clinton administration. That was what...6 years ago?

    • Re:changing roles (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:41AM (#12862538)
      I wouldn't blame the Bush administration on the Bubble Bursting. The Clinton Administration was the one who opened to doors for all this outsourcing. And if you actually looked at the market near Clintons final years the Stock Prices started to fluctuate and many of the Dot COM start to Dot Bomb. But I wouldn't blaim the Clinton Admistration much for their actions also. Because at the time Tech Workers were is so much demmand they needed to open the gates to get the work done. Who you should blame is all the greedy new investors hoping to jump onto the Next big thing. Over and Wrongly Evualiting all the new companies out there. I dont care what you say Pets.com is not a Tech Stock!!!

      • Re:changing roles (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Outsourcing has been going on for years before the Clinton administration. It has simply become more popular because it is more viable with improved communication technology. Bush however, giving tax breaks for outsourcing doesn't help.

  • iT vs. MIS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:33AM (#12862470)
    What was considered IT back the good old days of the 20th century was information Technology, with the emphasis on Technology. But after attempting to build an economic structure purely on technology we fond out the old rules are still in place and valid, and technology is only one of many tools in the business arsenal. As well the average person is becoming more computer savvy, so jobs like "computer operator" are becoming passé. Now that we have the Technology to enhance information, and it is affordable and easy to use, we now have to Manage our Information Systems to make all this cool stuff actually work right and also fit in the business needs. Sure Video conferencing is cool and all but does it actually help improve profit, No, not really. Or a high end Cisco network for 20 computers, nope that is not profitable either. IT workers are not supposed to be separated from the business that they work for they are part of it and they are being paid to help the company not just worried about tiny technical details. If it takes you twice as long to make a mid size program 50% faster, It would be cheaper to buy a computer that is twice as fast, and run your slower program on that and still have increased speeds. These are the issues business faces. Business don't want people who get loss in the technology they want people who know technology who also know how to use it to improve their business bottom line.

  • The bad news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by russotto ( 537200 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:34AM (#12862478) Journal
    That the remaining jobs are in areas where geeks are typically short in skills.

    The good news....
    It IS Gartner, meaning there's a damn good chance that analysis is a steaming pile of BS.

  • Interesting question: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Illserve ( 56215 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:37AM (#12862494)
    I wonder how many of those programming jobs 'lost' were actually promotions to managerial positions, and the vacancies left behind were farmed out?

  • No work for me, even though I write some grotesquely long and complex code. I feel like I've come a long way in 22 years since my early days of print rockets, but it seems like the industry is saturated. I've sent out thousands of resumes, but my only jobs I've gotten was a pity job from my university, and a job through my exgirlfriends dad.

    I have only one last hope at the best game design job in the world before its back to the salt mines(minimum wage:soul crushing work.) And to be honest, its almost

  • briliant (Score:2, Insightful)

    by chadseld ( 761331 )
    If we all become managers, get MBA's, focus on corporate strategy/direction, and financial analysis. WHO THE HELL IS GOING TO MAKE THE PRODUCTS?? Top-heavy boats tip over.

  • And what do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:39AM (#12862518) Homepage
    Manufacturing jobs "lost their luster" a long time ago because a combination of many destructive forces converged on blue collar workers. Corporations with loyalties to no one, not even the stockholders, union bosses who wanted blue collar workers to live middle and upper middle class lifestyles, politicians hell-bent on judging their job performance in volume of regulation and prison/quasi-slave labor in countries like China all conspired to destroy those jobs. Now we are simply progressing toward the inevitable destruction of the white collar job market for anyone who isn't a business major in college.

    One thing is certain about the job market. If the starry-eyed socialists would stop regulating our economy into the second world, we'd not be losing jobs the way we are. American workers are very expensive to hire, often too expensive to justify. A decent chunk of it is caused by politically correct bullshit like pushing for diversity over qualification, allowing people to sue merely for being offended rather than telling people to deal with it, the constant threat of corporate-to-corporate lawsuits over nothing and things of that nature.

    The bottom line is that if you want to actually have a job and a society that produces wealth rather than living off of the wealth of bygone years, you'll vote for the Libertarian Party. The LP is the only party that actually wants to create a regulatory regime that works for everyone. The coin-operated Democrats and Republicans only care about giving back to those who put them in power and don't care about making the system work for the rest of society.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Not a small chunk of it, however, is simply the American lifestyle and worker demands.

      In these other parts of the world, you have three generations of family living in an apartment. They don't the expectations of living in a 2500 sq. ft. home on an acre of land with two more cars than people to drive them. And they don't have the financial institutions scrambling to provide the ridiculous levels of debt Americans are willing to assume to have these things. This makes them a lot cheaper.

      And when your wo
      • And what do you expect? People are ridiculed for living with their parents. Mass transit is a chicken-and-egg situation where both the chicken and the egg failed to appear. Health insurance costs rise at a rate that far outstrips any other cost of living index, and the leading alternative (pre-tax funded health expense accounts) are largely untrusted because by and large, the money deducted from the worker's paycheck to fund the account isn't paid back to the worker if it's not used.

        But let's say I gave

    • Re:And what do you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by telbij ( 465356 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:25AM (#12862939)
      American workers are very expensive to hire, often too expensive to justify. A decent chunk of it is caused by politically correct bullshit like pushing for diversity over qualification

      I'm sorry, I'm all for Libertarian ideals, but the reason Americans are so expensive to hire is because our lifestyle is way out of proportion with most of the world. This all worked great in the past where there were significant barriers to international trade (language, economic, cultural, distance, etc), but as travel and communications technology improves, globalization becomes inevitable. It has nothing to do with politicians at all, everything is run by business, and that's not going to change any time soon.

      The fact of the matter is that Americans are better off by slowly venting jobs to 3rd world countries than attempting to hold off the inevitable through isolationist policies which would eventually lead to some forcible revolt against us. Rich people live in fear of losing what they have, but what they (and we) need to realize that global stability requires some basic economic balance. I'm not talking socialism, just let the free markets sort things out.

      Meanwhile, for those of us getting laid off, quit bitching and recognize your advantage! In most places, starting a business is impossible because there isn't enough money around for a sustained customer base. In America all you need is a salesperson and a half-decent idea.
      • American workers are expensive to hire because the cost of living is too high. Salaries will always be reflected by the cost of living so until the price of living comes down, salaries won't. Of course this doesnt aplly to retail or fast food since you can never get paid enough there to maintain a living.

        It's not as easy as you think to start up a business. The truth is most businesses fail within the first 5 years. You need more than a salesperson and a half ass idea. You need capital to get the busi

      • >

        Wrong. Now that the tech industry is gone, there are no new major jobs industries in America except the old school mcjobs at Wal Mart.

        We're at the end of the job evolution chain at this point. Biotech is a dead end. Alternative energy is a dead end. Both are being outsourced and automated.

        Offshoring means 6 billion people are competing for a few hundred million jobs. There'll never be an employee's market again, anywhere on Earth.

        I'd like to see what new jobs are coming. So far libertarians have bee
  • Let me think...

    Long hours. Hard work. Decent, but not great pay (let's face it, only a few become millionaires).

    Stinky, unshowered people, and hardly a womam in site.

    Why am I not surprised?

    Bryan

  • logic (Score:2, Funny)

    by __aahlyu4518 ( 74832 )
    "The U.S. software industry lost 16 percent of its jobs from March 2001 to March 2004"

    Not surprising if it took more than a year to calculate that. ;-)

  • Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:59AM (#12862686)
    We are trying to hire experienced C/C++ developers in the PDX area, and they are really (really) difficult to find. The truth is, that in 95% of the cases, good software engineers already have a job. Outsourcing might have made the lack of jobs for non experienced developers bigger, even if the level of quality you get from outsourcing is even lower than the one you might have got if you'd have given jobs in USA. In a few words, outsourcing stinks, and we better off importing the 1% of good developers they have oversee, and leave the remaining 99% junk in the wild. You get what you pay for dude, and the company I'm currently working with, is crudely facing this reality.

  • I dunnno... (Score:3, Informative)

    by mclaincausey ( 777353 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:08AM (#12862777) Homepage
    From all I've heard and read, a whole lot of firms are not realizing the advantages they signed up for with regard to outsourcing. Poor code, difficult logistics, and communication breakdowns are cutting into their savings. It doesn't matter if you're only paying developers $10k a year if you have to turn around and pay your few remaining engineers to pore over the code line by line and fix mistakes.

    I know that there are some good firms overseas that probably can provide a legitimate savings without some of these headaches, but businesses expecting a panacaea may come out the worse for outsourcing. Caveat emptor, YMMV, etc.

  • I call bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Derkec ( 463377 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:11AM (#12862801)
    Our problem is not lack of jobs, it's lack of qualified people. I've been in touch with folks in cleveland, chicago and denver and nobody can hire talented folks fast enough to keep up with growing demand \ businesses. It aint quite the late 90s, but demand is up folks.

    • Re:I call bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
      Agreed. People take the path of least resistance through college then wonder why they find it hard to get/keep a job.

      Granted I'm not a stellar example of success but I did manage to find a job straight out of college that pays decently and is fairly interesting. Just happens there aren't many cryptographers in Ottawa ;-)

      Tom

    • Re:I call bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Derkec ( 463377 )
      I need to critique my own post a bit once I read the article. The article is actually more reasonable the n the post. Yeah, lots of programmers are getting into the business side as well. That's probably a good thing for the programmers, the businesses and the software produced.

    • Re:I call bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)

      by iwadasn ( 742362 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:47AM (#12863164)

      exactly. If these people are actually qualified (I have found that about 20% of the "Super senior level god type programer/systemguy/dba and CTO"s out there are qualified to be basic entry level programmers) to be programmers, then I know about 20 companies that would trip over themselves trying to hire them for six figure salaries.

      If these people are HTML designers who call themselves CTOs because they can pick colors that look hideous together, then I think that's the root of the problem.

      Incompetence no longer guarantees a tech job. Most tech places have about 50% incompetent people, or more. Getting rid of them will be a long, drawn out, process as management learns something about computers and becomes able to recognize competence. While that happens, the dead weight will get cut loose, and we'll hear "OMG, 10% of techies who can't do basic arithmatic have been fired!!!!!" twice a week.

    • Lack of over qualified people, you mean (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20, 2005 @10:11AM (#12863421)
      Very few competent people have *all* of the qualifications that these jobs typically require. The resumes of these people are tossed out by HR for not having every single qualification and all you get passed on to you are applilcations by poseurs. Your sampling technique is flawed and there is no basis for your characterization of the talent pool.

    • Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rkischuk ( 463111 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @10:57AM (#12863857)
      I'm gonna call BS on your call, at least in part. Companies have an unrealistic expectation of hiring every single technical employee fully qualified. I get calls all the time for mid to upper level development jobs, and sure, there aren't enough people around to fill those jobs, but that's because few people are looking to hire at entry-level. I've seen dozens of guys just getting out of school, hunting for development jobs with no luck, while many of my friends at other companies are still asking if I know of anyone to fill their mid-level developer position.

      Companies need to suck it up. Maybe you would like to have an experienced developer, but the answer to a shortage of talent at that level needn't be whining or outsourcing. The experience threshold seems to be a reaction to the complete hacks hired into IT in the late 90's - by enforcing minimum experience, you reduce your chances of hiring a nitwit. The correction that needs to happen is that companies need to learn to filter and find qualified, inexperienced applicants. Companies aren't willing to invest in entry-level enough to create the mid-level talent that is needed. It's going to get worse before it gets better - I see new grads branching into other careers when they can't find a job, so there's even less new talent coming in.

  • Patently obvious (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bigman ( 12384 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:31AM (#12862998) Homepage Journal
    Hmmm.. US has largest growth in Software Patents; US has shrinking software industry.

    <sarcasm>No connection, surely?</sarcasm>

    I wonder how the employment rate for lawyers employed by US software companies is doing? That would make interesting reading.

  • H-1b/L-1/immigration a bigger issue (Score:3, Interesting)

    by randall_burns ( 108052 ) <randall_burns@@@hotmail...com> on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:34AM (#12863020)
    I discussed this in detail in this article [vdare.com]. The combination of offshoring, issues with the business cycle and corporate sponsored immigration policy is deadly. Just in case you thought the H-1b issue was over, there are _still_ over 65,000 visas per year being issued(the ones at major universities are exempt from the cap)-about half of which are for IT workers. On top of that there are L-1 visas that are specified in trade agreements like the recent Singapore Chile Free Trade Act that lock the US into substantial numbers of L-1 visas. An industry that is creating no jobs for Americans has no need for these visas.
    • So about 30,000 visas a year? Big deal. I hear they are running out too quickly so the quota needs to be increased. Note that there are laws that regulate H1-B visas. For example, an employee on an H1-B cannot earn less than the prevailing wage in his area. Evidently, continued demand for H1-Bs means the local talent pool is insufficient.

  • The Garter Group (Score:3)

    by borgheron ( 172546 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:35AM (#12863041) Homepage Journal
    Don't you guys know by now that the Garter group is full of so much crap??

    GJC

  • Realistic cycles hit again? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by meburke ( 736645 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:37AM (#12863061)
    Next month I will have been a programmer for 40 years. This is not the first bust I've seen in programming employment, but I'm not sure this is a cyclical change as much as a structural change. The task cannot continue "as is" in the face of advancing technology. Thirty-five years ago there were predictions of software being written by software, and we're on the verge of a BIG explosion of software. (Just look at all the submissions at Freshmeat.)

    However, there is a severe shortage of thinkers. Face it, any moron can write code, even good code, if the design is done well enough. But if 9 out of 10 software projects in the US are cancelled before completion (apparently due to cost overruns and design problems), then there is a tremendous pent-up demand for good, creative design implemented in affordable software! The new possibilities that could be addressed by a multitude of programmers freed from writing accounting reports and database forms could change our world in terrific ways!

    Unfortunately, the low education level in the US has produced a bunch of code peasants without the vision to use the tools they now have. These are persons whose main interest is getting a paycheck and going home to the bottle or TV.

    It took 40 years for the railroad to substantially change our lives. Same thing, 40 years, for electricity, automobiles and aircraft. Don't cry for buggy-whip code jobs. Those are something we had to get through to get to the chance for jetliner opportunities. Larry Ellison said (back in '96) that computing power had increased a millionfold in the last 20 years, and if it continued like that for another 20 years it would produce a future he couldn't even imagine. Back in '79, when Cincom Systems was building one of the best database managers to run on IBM mainframes, they had presentation that included this one fact: Back in 1940 the telephone companies had all the technology necessary to handle all the telephone calls made in 1979, but it would have taken every man, woman and child older than 14 in New York City to handle the calls! (Anyone else remember the days when you picked up the phone and got an operator? Oh, wait...there are places like that in Argentina and India.) Routine jobs will always be downsized, eliminated or automated, and any job becomes routine with progress. Some researchers are predicting huge unemployment in the unskilled labor market in 25 years. Robotic machinery will handle routine skills like cooking fast food, housework, framing homes, etc., but somebody will have to build and design those machines. I say we have a great opportunity to get there before the Chinese! I say , "Bring on the automated programming!" There is no end to the things I could build if didn't have to hire lazy, unreliable and expensive wetware to do the routine tasks.

  • I'm confused (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NitsujTPU ( 19263 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:40AM (#12863081)
    Isn't there a critical shortage [slashdot.org] of us?

    Aren't we supposed to be driving kids into this stuff, like they are in high school, regardless of the interests of the student.

    Isn't this always going to be a great career?

  • It's automation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by plopez ( 54068 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @09:45AM (#12863133) Journal
    WHile some of it is just off shoring, the other aspect is automation. First realize that the main role of IT is to automate, and that includes programming tasks. While software quality is not where it should be, the tools we have now; in terms of application tools, development tools and OS; are much better than they were 10 years ago. Hence you have greater productivity. Even MS has improved.

    The trend is more toward selecting commercial off the shelf products which meet business needs (which require business process modeling and requirments gathering) rather than in-house applications or hiring a vendor to create an application. This is where the 'business facing' aspect comes in.

    One good analogy I can come up with is the railroad industry. Up unitl about the late 1940's each railroad often built their own steam engines. Each engine was specialized to a specific task such as narrow gauge, long haul express, high speed passenger, locals etc. To support this you had mechanical shops with hundreds or even thousands of metal workers, boiler makers, welders etc. Then along came diesel electric trains and all those jobs dissappeared to be replaced by a few diesel mechanics and electricians, and some mechinical and electrical engineers to design and refine the engines.

    It is heading the same way. You will have people working on the business end defining requirements. Sometimes they will find COTS software and technicians will paste it together with some, but not much cutomization (and then OUTSIDE of the application). In some cases a custom job will be needed and so high end programmers who are good at solving new problems may come in. But the numbers will drop. It is inevitable as the industry matures.

  • It is not the fault of India, or China. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RexRhino ( 769423 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @01:10PM (#12865133)
    If it was about getting cheaper labor, U.S. companies would have outsourced all the jobs to third world countries 50 years ago when the U.S. was the number one producer of manufactured goods and it's workers were the highest paid in the world.

    The reason we are losing jobs in the United States (and it is not just the U.S., the Europe economy is in just as much trouble), is because we have created an enviornment that is hostile to honest buisness and production.

    We have a system where is is easier to litigate than it is to innovate - companies that succesfully produce goods and services are taxed, punished, regulated and litigated until they are unprofitable, while other companies thrive by suing for intellectual property, or by having the government give them subsidies and handouts, or lobbying the government to put their competition out of buisness.

    We have a system where someone who developes a new product or service for their employer will never be rewarded as highly as the person who sues their employer because a coworker told a dirty joke.

    We have created a climate where it just isn't possible to run a buisness in the U.S... Unless your buisness is based on lawsuits, saturation marketing, government subsidies, government enforced monopolies, or local service (like fast food or retail).

  • This is why monopolies are bad. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rimbo ( 139781 ) <rimbosity AT sbcglobal DOT net> on Monday June 20, 2005 @01:56PM (#12865596) Homepage Journal
    I see people are quick to point at the blame-of-the-month, outsourcing, but without really looking at how things got this way.

    See, if there were tons of software jobs out there to begin with, outsourcing would be just a drop in the ocean. But the demand for software isn't increasing. Why not?

    Well, try the fact that the only software that's profitable to make is already made by one company that dominates the industry, and its only competitors are open-source freeware.

    You're shaking your head. "Another Slashdot anti-Microsoft idiot," you say, as you point your mouse towards the -1 moderation dialogue. Well, so what new e-mail program/web browser/media player/operating system/spreadsheet/word processor/other commonly-used application have you written lately that wasn't Microsoft's or free?

    And it's not just Microsoft; look at the game industry consolidation, where a handful of companies dominate. Or graphics, where there were once dozens of companies making PC graphics cards there's now only two major ones (and the occasional intel chipset). Throughout the industry, you're either with the Big Company or you're out of luck. There's no competition outside of webspace, and even that is consolidating.

    Or you're saying, "But all those new jobs in a competitive market would be outsourced, too!" Well, only if there's enough supply to meet the demand; if not, the cost of outsourcing rises (including the decrease in quality as fourth-rate engineers are pressed into service to meet the demand) and outsourcing is no longer an issue.

    No, we need to bust up the monopolies, for real this time. It's bad for you and me because it means fewer jobs for you and me. It's bad for your boss because it means single-source suppliers can throttle your boss for every dime he has.

    It's just another cost of sponsoring a monopoly: Your job.

    Think about that the next time you want to buy a word processor.

    • monopoly busters? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by handy_vandal ( 606174 )
      No, we need to bust up the monopolies, for real this time.

      In America? You propose Federal Anti-Trust actions, in this day and age? Just when we're getting used to Patriot III or whatever? I think you overestimate our chances.

      Just as a thought experiment, let's assume (o noble dreamers) that there exists some possibility, however slim, of breaking up large, vigorous monopolies -- specifically Microsoft.

      Under this assumption, I recommend an alternate approach: nationalizing the source code. For th

  • 16% in 3 years? thought it'd be more (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ecloud ( 3022 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @03:50PM (#12866640) Homepage Journal
    Heck the demise of the dot-com boom is enough to explain that, and in just the right time period too.

    It remains to be seen if outsourcing means the US is getting out of the programming business, or just that the boring jobs are getting outsourced only to be replaced with more creative ones. And short-term small changes like this can be adequately explained by the business cycle.

  • The .com C.S Moron Bomb (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shoeless_barney ( 687811 ) on Monday June 20, 2005 @08:58PM (#12868699)
    Is it I, or did a great number of "questionable" technology professionals enter the programming field between 1998-2000? Is that not when history majors, Taco Bell workers, and bus drivers thought "programming" had luster and these .bomb companies hired them to developer E-commerce applications?
    My question is, didn't that hurt true computer scientists and information technologists? We have recently be interviewing many candidates to fill some technical positions, finding qualified candidates is difficult because we are still getting those folks that tried to ride the .bomb wave and it makes it tough to filter them out until you interview them. They usually pass the "I did everything" on the resume test. I have faith that "good", creative problem solving programmers are and will always be needed.

  • "Low Level" DoubleSpeak (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @12:09AM (#12869671) Journal
    Whenever a career disappears (literally) over the horizon, it seems to get the label "low level", "repetative", etc. This article does it also. This is often used as a justification to let globalization eat away at the variety of careers available.

    How is sitting in meetings all day, placating paranoid CEO's, and playing office politics "higher level" than figuring out how to get Oracle to join 5 tables and 2 million records before the nightly batch job deadline is up?

    We already traded "boring, low-level" factory jobs for the highly skilled and highly rewarding cashier jobs at Burger King and Walmart. They are just bending language so that they can get away with doing the same thing to tech careers without the guilt.

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