Surprise! Tech is a safe career choice today

The once rock-steady tech job has been battered by ferocious waves lately: a dot-com bust, offshoring, outsourcing, H-1B replacements, cost-cutting, and now layoffs resulting from the global economic crisis. Weary tech veterans also lament tough working conditions, citing everything from ridiculously excessive hours to ignorant managers to zero opportunities for advancement. So it's no surprise that very few college-bound teenagers dream of toiling their lives away in a cubicle staring at a computer screen.

Yet, in the current tough U.S. job market, a tech career is actually one of the safest ones to have. Tech is still a good profession with decent pay and relatively solid job security. "The reality is there's still a very healthy job sector in information technology," says Mehran Sahami, an associate professor of computer sciences at Stanford University.

Tech's poor image, though, continues to blind young people from seeing the bright side. Tapping America's Potential, a coalition of businesses working toward doubling the number of students earning bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math, also known as STEM areas, reported last summer that it's already falling behind in that goal after only three years.

Read the whole article here.

OK, the article's US based, but we're an international forum

-Ken