moderator - feel free to move this thread to a more appropriate forum if needed. first, i'm not an economist and don't pretend to be one. as a full-time trader - daytrade index futures for income and position trade stocks for wealth - i've come to the point where i don't pay a lot of attention to economic news. don't get me wrong, i do follow it to some degree, but don't base my trades on it. i base my trades on my set-ups, nothing else. i live in the SF bay area, and i've been hearing for the past 6 months or so that engineers, programmers, and other tech types are beginning to opt out of employemt contracts and go the independent contractor route. i'm not one of these guys ( i know which button does what, but i'm no engineer, that's for sure!) but my friends who are part of this are saying that they can get higher hourly rates by moving around right now because so many companies are practically tripping over themselves trying to hire. i may be totally wrong about this, but it would seem to me that regardless what the NAZ might be doing right now, the tech world is pretty strong. apparently a lot of the demand is web video related...everyone is trying to get a piece of it...infrastructure, content, distribution, etc. so, on the one hand tech looks poised for growth based on my obseravation, but on the other hand the dot bomb had similar dynmanics. any and all thoughts appreciated.
Actually, hiring IT staff for projects as you need them (and not on permanent payroll) makes a lot of sense for many companies. And, given the cheaper IT alternatives around the globe, this could be more than just a trend with the industry. Any one out there in IT that has some input?