IT as an industry

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HI guys

Just a quick question. I wondered if anybody knew how bad the economy was hitting IT as an industry compared to others. I will soon be looking for a new job and want to know if it'll be easier or harder than other professions?

Also, are there any industry magazines that might give a regular up to date view on these types of things.

 

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Here in the U.S.A. the sector never recovered from the dot-com bubble bursting. A few large corps used the crisis and their capital advantage to consolidate dominant market positions and eliminate any semblance of free-market competition. After that it was like swimming up stream. At the industrial-heavy DOW's recent peak, the tech-heavy NASDAQ hadn't even gotten back to half of its previous level.

Looks like history is about to repeat itself. JP Morgan is bigger and WaMu is gone.

 

There are a lot of IT jobs about but it depends on your experience, niche skills etc.

Depends also where you live (not noted on your profile)

 

Computers are pervasive in every field nowadays though, so even if you switch tracks later you'll be able to leverage your IT skills.

 

One of my best friends is a Pre Sales Storage Architect and he earns big bucks (I will be back there in a year or two )

However, he has just started his own company fixing peoples PC as well. Was chatting to him about it the other day, think he pulled in just over £250 last month from it.

I asked him why he is doing it, and you know what he said, because he still enjoys the nitty gritty

 

The Obama administration is in for a rude awakening. They think if they use the same economic morons Clinton used we'll get the same economy. But hey, Al Gore invented the Internet, so I guess Clinton must have invented the "new economy" too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-industrialization_crisis

 

And Bush's economic plan was essentially re-industrialization. He made it work by getting his banker buddies to pump-and-dump old economy real estate. Now that his boolshiat has caught up to him we're in an even worse position than before.

You can have all the confidence and faith in the economic system you want, that's not going to change reality or fill empty bellies. But on the plus side, happy people with full bellies don't revolt against fascist police states. So some good might come out this after all. yy

 

There will always be a demand for techys and 'computer type' skills. I mean by this there will always be a need for someone (s), however if this demand will lessen or go up - we can clearly see at the moment it is down!

There are still jobs about but its going to be harder to get them ATM, which is why you must distinguish yourself from others and try to stay in a secure job for a bit.

I look now and again at jobs on recruiting agency websites such as reed.co.uk. For quite a few posos there are over 20-50 applicants for one job. Its a hard world out there ; / For graduate positions its even higher with thousands no doubt applying for a poso.

 

The pay is crap when you start out but will soon get better.
Goes for any industry really... plus hard work, determination will pay off etc.

 

Actually, it doesn't seem to be doing too badly... not here in my region of the US, anyway. The one guy I know personally who got laid off found another job within a week. All my other friends and old co-workers (of which there are quite a few, considering I've held 8 IT jobs in the past 11 years) are still happily (or otherwise) employed.

Don't mind Crito, he's always this negative.

 

THanks for the replies everybody. It seems that the consensus here is pretty much the same as what I had found in my local area. Generally it seems that more specialist roles like IT are easier to find work in. Just as well really

 

Just a quick follow up on from this thread.

I happened upon this site by chance today. It would have helped me with this question and might help others in the future. Enjoy......

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk

 

IT recently featured in a list of 'top 10 recession-proof jobs'.
I think it came in about 8, the big winners were education and healthcare.

Doesn't matter how tough things get, the same number of kids go to school, the same number of people get ill and the same number of spanners forget their passwords...

 

Interesting. I was also reading something similar about Bio-informatics and IT jobs in medical fields.

 

This is one of several reasons why I chose this career/education path a couple years ago. If you think about it, every business in the world operates off computers, and every business is into E-commerce, therefore every company in the world needs an IT department to some degree. Therefore I will always have a job somewhere no matter where I end up. Since my wife is in the Navy and we have to move around a lot, this only made sense, that and I've always wanted to be in IT.

 

I love these lists - they show up every once in a while - and always have things like 'police officer', 'funeral director' and 'driving instructor' on them. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a 'recession-proof' job. Absolutely no such thing. Just because people will always need to have the tar whaled out of them in town centres of a Saturday night, will always need to be buried, or will always need to learn to drive, doesn't mean that there won't be some greedy tosspot sat up the top wondering if they could pay for another Beemer by giving ten staff the pump, or buy a new property in the Bahamas by selling off their interest in a company to a faceless American corporate who promptly comes in, asset-strips the **** out of the company and fires everyone to put five cents on the stock price.

IMNSHO, people should stop concentrating on how much money they'll make in their chosen career, or whether their career is 'safe'... and start just doing something they enjoy doing. If you enjoy it - you'll be good at it, ergo you'll remain infinitely more employable than the wageslave sat next to you who's doing it because he 'heard there was money in IT'.

 

Thanks for the link Ken. Looks really good

 

I wholeheartedly adhere to this mindset. It absolutely works.