Barbados and south seas? Mate you must be crazy living in dream lands and fairy tales. Stock price collapse, investment propertys crash. IT worker lucky if get next paychecks without project cancels. This site obvious not heard of GFC ie global finance crisis. Perhaps better to cover reality.

This article first appeared on ITContractor in 2003, and is clearly out of touch with the current realities.

Original Article

Redefining the possibilities of the word “offshore,” IBM has invited its recently laid-off U.S. workers to find work with the storied company in developing countries like India – where salaries are a fraction of what Americans are used to.

While the invitation is likely more than most U.S. companies have offered the 2.6 million Americans laid off in 2008, the company’s standing offer is probably cold comfort to most newly minted ex-IBM employees.

Move to India or stay broke

Giving in to global pressures, a growing number of US tecchies are accepting lower wages through global freelance websites. $17/hour may not be much, but it's better than nothing.

US Techies embrace freelancing, and lower wages

A decent talk by Kent Beck about why programmers need to feel at ease at work.

It's rare that an IT speaker addresses the more psychological aspects of teamwork and how that affects each programmers internal mood and productivity.

Kent Beck: Are you at ease?

Can a competent programmer be productive in any language in a short amount of time?

Shall we bust this myth?

The Competent Programmer Myth?

This is a mind-boggling figure.

11 Million Americans are unemployed. The following video tries to put that into context for you

11 Million Unemployed in America

Some of You people seem to be completely incapable of positive thinking. I think perhaps that's the main reason why people would like to kick some of you out of projects - not the financial crisis. Here is my addition to the divine contract list: "any project in Australia - where the competition is ridiculously low due to low performing and under educated Aussie "professionals" who expect to get payed for wining".

Pluto is poorly educated going by the spelling and diction in his/her post.

Pluto would not be able to pass any sort of academic degree; your essays would get a mark of 0%

Abstract:

Despite significant public, media, and academic interest in offshoring, there has been very little data available through which to assess how offshoring has affected US-based information technology workers. In this study, we use data from two new, nationally representative surveys to examine how offshoring has already affected the US based IT workforce, and to test the hypothesis that offshoring is making interpersonal skills more valuable for US-based IT workers.

Our survey results show that 40% of high-technology firms offshore work, and about 30% of all firms that offshore send IT work overseas. Among the IT workers surveyed, about 8% report ever having experienced offshoring-related job displacement, double the average offshoring-related displacement rate across all other worker types, but still implying an annual offshoring-related displacement rate of only about 1-2% per year.

We also provide evidence that workers in jobs that require face-to-face contact or physical presence are at smaller risk of offshoring-related job displacement, implying that interpersonal skills are becoming relatively more valuable among IT workers. A one standard deviation increase in our skills measure increases the likelihood of having one's job offshored by about 25% above the base rate. Our findings imply that IT workers in functions that involve cross-divisional communication or hands-on support are less likely to be affected by offshoring.

Download the study here (SSRN-id1259323.pdf)

How Does Offshoring Affect Information Technology Workers?

Note: The US President Barack Obama has read this document and he is disgusted.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Employers slashed another 598,000 jobs off of U.S. payrolls in January, taking the unemployment rate up to 7.6%, according to the latest government reading on the nation's battered labor market.

The latest job loss is the worst since December 1974, and brings job losses to 1.8 million in just the last three months, or half of the 3.6 million jobs that have been lost since the beginning of 2008.

The loss since November is the biggest 3-month drop since immediately after the end of World War II, when the defense industry was shutting down for conversion to civilian production.

January's job loss was also worse than the forecast of a loss of 540,000 jobs from economists surveyed by Briefing.com

The rise in the unemployment rate also was worse than the 7.5% rate economists expected. The unemployment rate is now at its highest level since September, 1992.

As bad as the unemployment rate was, it only tells part of the story for people struggling to find jobs. Friday's report also showed that 2.6 million people have now been out of work for more than six months, the most long-term unemployed since 1983.

And that number only counts those still looking for work. The so-called underemployment rate, which includes those who have stopped looking for work and people working only part-time that want full-time positions, climbed to 13.9% from 13.5% in December. That is the highest rate for this measure since the Labor Department first started tracking it in 1994.

Job loss: Worst in 34 years

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.

AP Investigation: Banks sought foreign workers

In this article the follow details need to be highlighted:

Foreigners are attractive hires because companies have found ways to pay them less than American workers.

Companies are required to pay foreign workers a prevailing wage based on the job's description. But they can use the lower end of government wage scales even for highly skilled workers; hire younger foreigners with lower salary demands; and hire foreigners with higher levels of education or advanced degrees for jobs for which similarly educated American workers would be considered overqualified.

"The system provides you perfectly legal mechanisms to underpay the workers," said John Miano of Summit, N.J., a lawyer who has analyzed the wage data and started the Programmers Guild, an advocacy group that opposes the H-1B system.

David Huber of Chicago is a computer networking engineer who has testified to Congress about losing out on a 2002 job with the former Bank One Corp. He learned later the bank applied to hire dozens of foreign visa holders for work he said he was qualified to do.

"American citizenship is being undermined working in our own country," Huber said in an AP interview.

Beyond seeking approval for visas from the government, banks that accepted federal bailout money also enlisted uncounted foreign workers, often in technology jobs, through intermediary companies known as "body shops." Such businesses are the top recipients of the H-1B visas.

Of course the industry lobbyists who have a vested interest reacted:

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) believes Congress took a disturbing step backwards today - to an era of employment protectionism.

Congress Takes a Wrong Turn on Way to Stimulus

Testimony to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee

Subcommittee on Immigration

Dr. Norman Matloff

Department of Computer Science

University of California at Davis

Presented April 21, 1998; updated December 9, 2002

Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage

Oh yeas here one I would like to get some truth out of.

To any employee who reads this, can I at least get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me GOD.

Why is there so much ageism in IT and why don't you hire older Developers.

Its a simple question that is denied by recruiters.

SD

Read the full document in the link above. All will be revealed.

Most, like myself, have walked away from the industry in complete disgust and have taken up real occupations and professions.

..create an artifical skills shortage.

The gray hairs do not have the new skills.

It is important to note that though the industry has claimed that the visa program is just a "temporary" solution to the claimed labor shortage until the educational system can produce more programmers, that claimed/perceived "shortage" will be permanent. The reason for this is that, since software technology will continue to change extremely rapidly, and since employers are not willing to hire a veteran programmer who learns a new software skill via coursework, it will always be the case that most programmers do not possess the latest software skills, and thus there always will be a "shortage".

I know that Debunking the Skills is a huge document, but read every word carefully. It reveals all complete with mmany case studies.

This comment was removed as it contained offensive content.

I've been in IT for 20 years exactly, and sadly its now only a game for mugs.

Skill level and productivity don't count for shit these days...

When I was a leather craftsman over 20 years ago, my german boss said that people do not appreciate quality (in their leather-goods; eg. bags, purses), therefore do not waste your time giving it to them. Make the article as cheaply as possible, yet just so it still looks good enough to sell. (NB: They do not appreciate quality because they are untrained and uncultured.)

The IT industry is now like this. Why bother exerting yourself, because no-one is going to appreciate it anyway... Just give'em the cheapest solution...

And the cheapest solution is apparently not on the mainframe...

My company is offering up these new cheap solutions on midrange/wintel platforms, and we experience outage after outage, performance problem after performance problem, month after month.

This type of thing does not happen on the mainframe.

But who really cares about these endless outages and performance problems?

I just get sick and tired of seeing the same old weekly emails being sent company wide, telling us that someone is looking at it...

The ACS is flogging a dead horse here I am afraid. Why would the government want to spend taxpayers dollars on a industry that has failed and treated its workforce with contempt? There are much higher priorities of benefit to society such as health, education, housing, and above all EMPLOYMENT.

The industry has much to do, such as to work on repairing its damaged image before it starts asking for welfare assistance.

A missed opportunity for economic growth & global competitiveness

Thursday, 5 February 2009 –The Australian Computer Society, Australia’s peak representative body for ICT professionals, has today called for Federal Government action in the form of support of the Digital Economy and ICT R&D in order to stimulate Australia’s economy and ensure our nation’s ongoing global competitiveness. The call was made in light of the exclusion of ICT related strategies in the Government’s Stimulus Package and wide acknowledgment that technology is a driver of productivity growth in Australia.

ACS Chairman, Kumar Parakala said that although the Government has acted swiftly to stabilise and stimulate the Australian economy in the short term, a package aimed at creating growth in the economy has failed to recognise the potential of the ICT industry, which can stimulate employment in all sectors of the economy. With adequate investment, the Government’s own figures estimates that the ICT industry will increase service industry growth by 35-65%1 due to technological factors, and between 45-75% in manufacturing industries.

The Missing Link: Stimulus Package Excludes ICT

ACS Chief Executive Officer, Kim Denham said whilst caution is important, we must continue to build offshore alliances in order to create a stronger ICT future for Australian professionals.

"While the recent corporate governance failure of Satyam Computers will have an impact on business confidence of offshore companies, there’s no turning back the clock on globalisation. Outsourcing and offshoring is a reality of our industry. Satyam employs a significant number of Australian ICT professionals and the ACS is keen to minimise any impact on them."

There is much evidence now that offshoring and globalisation as implemented is the bain of the IT Professional.

The 2007 Survey found that a significant proportion (19.2%) of respondents reported that they had been discriminated against on the basis of their age. Both age and sexual discrimination was significantly higher in Queensland, and sexual discrimination was also high in Western Australia.

Unemployment experience varied significantly by age. Whilst the relatively high unemployment level for the under 30 age group can be explained by the delay for many in this group in gaining their first job, the higher level of unemployment experience for the 41-50 age group is more likely to be derived from a combination of age discrimination and either real or imagined concerns about the currency of their ICT skills. When combined with the reported levels of age discrimination by both ACS grade and job type, this suggests that ICT recruiting practices are failing to access a significant group of older experienced workers within these job-skills.

ACS Employment Survey 2007

THE 2003 ACS ICT EMPLOYMENT SURVEY ICT employment at all-time high - but some stains remain

Of course a reduction of unemployment is expected due to many, like me, have made a quick exit from the industry and entry into other more sustainable occupations.

Missing link (lmao) for this subject.

Corporate Governance and Professionalism: key to ensuring a strong ICT industry in light of global challenges

I just love the way the last few posts in here are all from you, all containing articles about the negatives in the IT industry, it's almost as if your trying to find bad things.

If you are to be believed that you are out of the industry why are you going to this effort? Sure tell your kids not to go into it (hey more work for me), but don't continue acting like some loser who couldn't hack it and thus doesn't want anyone else to enjoy their time in the industry.

I like doing what I am doing, duckie.

Besides that, from the angle I see it there is nothing positive about the so-called IT Industry at all. Besides there has been a lack of long-term commitment to genuine IT development for many years now.

What do you do with your spare time? Probably play Solitaire like most managers.

anon the anal thinks there is a boom in the industry.

SD

You will get your sandwiches all of you on the DOLE.

It's just I know things are not quite as bleak as the posters on this site portrays. I'll put it bluntly, all my friends both young and old, who are in IT, are doing well. They all have jobs, they are all earning well above the average wage.

As for my time playing solitaire, I've got better things to do. I have actual work to keep me occupied, and yet I still have free time to be able to enjoy life. As far as I'm concerned your life is what you make of it, coming on here and bitching about an industry you left, it's no wonder your life in IT sucked so much.

But as employer it is in your best economical interests to lure in IT industry as many people as possible, so when they will become desperate, you will able to extract more juice from them .

bitching about an industry you left

I didn't leave - I was obstructed. Had no choice but to choose another career.

it's no wonder your life in IT sucked so much.

On the contrary. I had a very fulfilling career until the rot set in at the turn of the century.

I entered the computer industry in 1978 and was a contractor (Pty Ltd) since 1984. My company provided network integration and software development services and was also a Novell Authorised Reseller. Many contracts both large and small were entered into and the last substantial contract commenced March 1995 which was initially a three month contract then extended many times for a total period of 4 years and 3 months.

I have noticed the administrator of this site is gagged by there superiors.

Only positive topics allowed.

It makes out there is no IT downturn in Australia.

Gee every one has a job according to the 13th floor.

SD

anon, and others of his ilk, simply could not give a rats-ass about the careers, wellbeing and welfare of others. Just their own little selfish selves.

They probably don't even feel for the victims of the Victorian bushfires.

The New South Wales Government's jobs website is still offline, more than three weeks after it was hacked.

The site advertising public service jobs was taken down when some users started receiving unsolicited spam emails advertising the "perfect job".

The Commerce Department says while hackers were able to obtain email addresses, details like addresses and phone numbers were not accessed.

But Greens MP John Kaye says the problem should have been fixed by now.

"How long does it take to fix up a website? The Department of Commerce is simply not trying," he said.

"It doesn't take 25 days to fix up security loopholes in a website."

NSW jobs site down for three weeks and counting

Hey, Hawkwind a k a Gloomy - you need to let go of that crack pipe and get a life...

Only psychos are confused when it comes to identifing people.

Go see your shrink!

The controversy over the H-1B visa program for highly skilled workers is heating up once again. Federal agents detained 11 people in six states as part of a wide investigation into suspected visa fraud, the U.S. Attorney's office in Iowa announced on Feb. 12, a day after the arrests. Those arrested are accused of fraudulently representing themselves or other workers in immigration documents.

Visa Fraud Sparks Arrests Nationwide

Also read the comments.

A study finds that 13% of the visa petitions for U.S. employers to bring in skilled foreign workers are fraudulent

A report released Oct. 8 by the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) reveals that 13% of petitions filed for H-1B visas on behalf of employers are fraudulent. Another 7% contain some sort of technical violations.

High Rate of H-1B Visa Fraud

Guess Who's Getting the Most Work Visas