A interesting fact - some 10 years ago, you were able to hire a math PhD with great programming skills for mere 500 a month in Moskow. These days it takes from 1500 to 2500. Appropriately, the cost of less qualified people increased from 100-200 to about a thousand. Same thing is happening in India - a good software developer in Bombay is making some 15-20k a year and the numbers are growing.
It's all a bunch of slogans, it's too easy to come up with things like "Adapt or Perish", Make oneself more marketable" etc. It does not help those laid-off 5000 IBMers though. They had good jobs as Software Engineers, Accountants, CS/Tech Support. They were laid-off not because of lack of skills, experience, education, loyalty to the company or willingness to learn and upgrade their skills. They were laid-off because nowdays 90% of what can be done in this country can also be done overseas. That is especially applicable to technical and financial skills. That's btw equally applicable to science and R&D. Just because it's not happening now does not mean it will not happen 10 years from now. If indian developers who's never been to this country can develop a new brokerage system I do not see any reason why russian chemists cannot develop new detergent in Moscow. So get off your high horse and give those IBMers specific advice if you can. They do not need to know that "We'll be a better country". They need to know what jobs are out there, what white-collar jobs will not be exported in the next 10 years. Trust me, they are willing to learn but they need to know what classes to take and what skills to upgrade to become marketable again. So, if you know of an industry which is hiring - post it. If you know specific white-collar skills which are in great demand and are not at risk of being outsourced within the next few years - let us know. 5000 families will be infinitely greatful to your insights. Otherwise everything you've posted so far sounds good, very patriotic and politically correct but is absolutely meaningless.
dddooo: What high horse?! I AM AN EX-IBMER, a former UNIX programmer consultant in the IBM Global Services division. I got squeezed out too, just not as tragically as the 5000 that were recently cut because I saw the writing on the wall and opted to leave on my own two years ago. At least two longtime IBMer friends of mine also left early, due to the coming hard times. One of my best friends still works with IBM as an IBM Business Partner, and all of her laid-off IBM salesperson friends adapted by switching to other industries. Several went into real estate (of course--it's what's hot right now), some into insurance, others into other tech companies. Did any of them fail to adapt? Nope. They all found jobs--maybe not the same jobs for the same pay, but some actually found better jobs. Specific advice for the 5000 laid-off IBMers: do what I did--go back to school, work on currently-marketable programming languages. I was doing perl and Korn shell programming for system administration/automation tasks before. Now, I'm doing Java, tcl and perl programming for interface engines. It's what's in demand now, and I'm earning more now than I did with IBM. Demand for interface engine experts is growing due to the dramatic increase in healthcare informatics (thanks in a large part to HIPPA). And I'm going back to school to ultimately switch out of computing entirely, because I can see an unstoppable trend towards grid and utility computing along with self-healing hardware and software that will render much of the CURRENT IT industry obsolete. Specific enough for ya? I adapted without expecting assistance or hand-outs from anybody, and I expect no less than that from everyone else. Move it or lose it, people! Oft-used slogans are oft-used because they have the ring of truth in them. Maybe they are trite or don't have the specificity for the situation at hand, I'll give you that. But, there is no false dilemma in the statement "adapt or perish." It applies to me, my fellow former-IBMers and everyone else.
True... the writing has been on the wall for a while now. I plan for this to be my LAST IT job as well. However.... I think dddooo and others are simply raising the red flag about the future. Ok... so blue collar jobs went over seas. No brainer. These were lower paying jobs. But now... the white collar jobs are going over seas. These are NOT low paying grunge work jobs either. Lots of these IT guys are over the 100K mark. This puts them in the top 10%, %5 or better wage ladders. You think it's only the grunge work programmers? It's not. I've been a lead architect type for years. ALL the positions are moving off shore. Companies first move the programmers, then realize, its hard to manage them remotely. So they move the managers. Then they discover, the time shift between the designers and architects and programmers cause friction. Then they move the designers and architects over too. Why not?? Dont think the indians can architect? Nonsense. These jobs are toast as well. Soon... the CEO will be here pocketing his huge bonus for saving the company so much money. But he will be all alone in a huge office with the entire rest of his company in india So we wipe these guys out. Then all the CPA's, the engineers, etc,etc... When it finally all stops... where will we be? All blue collar jobs...gone. All white collar jobs, up to pretty high levels... gone. Who's left? You guys say adapt or die, but only a VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE of people have the capability to become top notch ivy league scientists, etc. Not only that... there are only a small number of slots available for these kinds of positions. We dont need 100 million top notch scientists I think this is the main point dddooo and friends are trying to make. What are all these NON-top-notch-ivy-league guys gonna do??? We may be heading toward some scary times, with a large number of US jobs off shored, or wages reduced by huge amounts due to foreign competition. I just hope it takes a long time so I can already be retired. peace axeman
Actually no, it's not specific enough. I'd been a java developer for years before I moved into trading. The Java market is obviously somewhat better then DB2 or Unix or Perl but first of all it still sucks, jobs are hard to find, rates are half of what they used to be. And second it's just delaying the inevitable. The Java jobs are exported with speed equal if not exceeding speed of other computer skills. You are going back to school and plan to get out of IT. I guess you'll follow your parents career and become a scientist. Good for you, unfortunately it's not an acceptable path for the majority of the laid off people. I agree with your "move it or lose it people" statement. My contention is that for majority of people there is nowhere to move. Your response did not provide a suitable direction either other then your mentioning of Java. So yes, they are going to lose. Unlike you I do not see it as a good thing for the country and economy. PS. Thanks axeman, that's exactly what I had in mind.
axeman, You got a good point. And right now, a lot of even Ivies graduates don't get jobs. Harvard MBAs are unemployed! Or finding it very difficult to find jobs. So, will CPAs and other financial service jobs. And it's due to just the statistics of sheer numbers. A billion Indians. A billion Chinese. Several hundred million Russians and Eastern Europeans. They all want a piece of the the global economy. And even if a small fraction of them are capable it can wipe out an entire IT industry here in the U.S. Take for example, IIT(Indian Institute of Technology), which is India's premier technical school - kinda like the MIT of India. They take less than 1% of all applications, which makes it more competitive than Harvard(which takes 9-10% of applicants). And American companies have the LUXURY to hire the top IIT computer science, math, physics graduate for like 10-20K a pop. And even at top 1% that's still tens of thousands of overqualified , highly trained work force willing to do just about anything. Same with China. Some stats say that China is producing somewhere like 40,000 engineers a YEAR! Same with Russian, Romania, Estonia, Hungrary,etc. And not only in IT and software development. CPAs, accounting, and even medical related services too. There will be some serious dislocation of the American Middle Class coming up... And yes, I don't believe in protectionsim or erecting tariffs,etc. But a lot of people will be slow to react or can't due to economic reasons or what not. Perhaps, we'll become a nation of lawyers, doctors, and entertainers. Hollywood is still America's best exports. We can entertain, sue, and heal. just being sarcastic here...
Yup.... I agree. Think about what misc. said. BILLIONS of well educated workers in the world willing to take 1/5 of your pay. In trading terms.. this is an inefficient market that capitalism WILL take advantage of. Unfortunately, the US is on the WRONG side of the inefficiency. What are the implications? LOWER wages and lost jobs. Game over man.... game over. peace axeman
According to the Darwin theory "it is not the strongest who survive it is those adoptable to changes". It is very unfortunate that programmers and other educated and hard working people here in US have to do hardship because of the jobs going away. I am a programmer and witnessed most of the boom and bust cycle. I got my BS in EE in Russia. Here I earned MS in Computer Science working part time and going to school at night. During 7 years of programming I saw programming salaries rising 10 - 20% a year. I saw how managers tried to get anyone who can spell out "Computer" and getting people who have no formal Computer Science education or "made up" their resume. Also, I saw how the same managers fired most ("good and bad") programmers and tried to replace them with foreign low cost labor. What brings me comfort is the realization that this is the evolution cycle. This is how the US economy is trying to adopt and develop. It did developed indeed in the process: look at todayâs Computers, software and Internet. This evolution is far from perfect. There were and always will be excesses. But unfortunately, there is no alternative to this very natural process. I witnessed the crush of the "planned" Soviet Union economy. I have seen how the "protectionism" makes empty store shelves. However, on the bright side I believe this is the evolution that will make this country stronger. Programmers who "should not program" will become managers and business owners. The same is true about other victims. And all this will be possible because of one very important thing that makes this country different from the "Old World". This is the land of the opportunity. And it would take hundreds of years and multiple generations in Russia, China and India to learn what entrepreneur freedom, hardworking spirit and corruption free environment means. They are far behind in this evolution cycle. This is not the knowledge you can get in school. This is something that people learn from the childhood, culture and the history of the motherland.
"Programmers who "should not program" will become managers and business owners. " Yes... the incompotent will rise to higher paying positions to "manage" the talent How typical. Those who can't DO, manage... hehe... Oh well.... problem is... they are going to "rise" to compete with all the Harvard MBA's who aren't getting jobs either What non-exportable high paying jobs WON'T come under attack? Doctors? Attorneys? CEOs, Dentists, who else? Here are the top 10: ( 7 of which are medical ) 1. Surgeons $65.89/hr $137,050/yr 2. Obstetricians and gynecologists $64.15/hr $133,430/yr 3. Anesthesiologists $63.31/hr $131,680/yr 4. Internists, general $61.03/hr $126,940/yr 5. Pediatricians, general $56.03/hr $116,550/yr 6. Psychiatrists $54.60/hr $113,570/yr 7. Family and general practitioners $52.89/hr $110,020/yr 8. Dentists $53.28/hr $110,820/yr 9. Chief Executives $51.77/hr $107,670/yr 10. Airline pilots, copilots and flight engineers (N/A) $99,400/yr Here is another list: $99,000 Physicians $86,000 Dentists $72,000 Attorneys $65,000 Optometrists $64,000 Chiropractors $63,000 Physicists $54,000 Veterinarians $50,000 Psychologists National averages seem so LOW when you live in california Check out some of the game programmer related positions: Survey highlights include*: * The average game programmer salary is $66,000. * A technical director with 6 or more years experience earns an average of $104,000. * Game artists earn an average of $61,000. * A game designer with one year of experience earns an average of $52,000, with the highest salary reported at $300,000. * Game producers earn an average of $76,000. * Developer salaries are highest in California and Texas, where game development studios tend to cluster. peace axeman
Well, first of all, let me make it clear that I don't think that becoming a PhD "rocket scientist" or "top-notch-ivy-league-guys" is what every American has to do to survive in the new job market. I haven't chosen that path for myself (because pure scientists on average make lousy incomes), and I agree that many Americans wouldn't want to do so either. And besides, the way markets work is that there is going to be a wide spectrum of choices ranging in quality and price: there are gonna be people offering their services as anything from septic tank servicers to President of the United States (wait--aren't they the same job?). We can't all do the same thing, and I never said that we had to. What I did say was that higher eduation (which does not mean "PhD from Ivy League schools") is fast becoming a requirement for even average (white collar) jobs. That statement is true--there are plenty of studies to support it. What I have been trying to say is that we each need to each start developing our own competitive advantage, be it geographic, knowledge, political, whatever. For instance, it's impossible for us to outsource janitors to India--why? Because the toilets we need janitors to clean are here in the good ol' USA. It's a geographic advantage that janitors can exploit. Likewise with some fraction of IT jobs--mainly hardware repair guys whose servers are physically located here (not for long! utility and grid computing will destroy the data center). Those 5000 former IBMers need to switch to jobs that have at least some geographic advantage (to make sure the job stays in the US) and preferably some sort of knowledge advantage that increases their income AND temporarily ensures non-export to other nations. dddooo: Actually, what I said is indeed specific enough. It is my own personal story, which is specific to ME. Unfortunately, you're asking me to be "generally specific" by prescribing a specific solution for 5000 different people with different situations and different wants and dreams. I can only tell my tale so that some of the 5000 might be able to draw upon my specific example while deciding what to do for themselves. I do agree that Java sucks--yessiree, it's rapidly becoming a dead-end for me too. It happened to me back in the early 90's with HTML and CGI scripting, it happened again with the dot com fiasco, and again with the Windows-killing-UNIX thing. Hey, I am always barely one step ahead of the axe, and I accept it as part of the IT job. THAT'S what I'm trying to say. If you got into tech, then you know how fast it moves and how hard it can be. Just like if you got into trading, you know (or you'll find out!) how harsh its reality can be. So what I'm saying is, IT is not for the naive or the slow-moving. If those 5000 programmers thought their jobs were gonna last for more than five years, they got it tragically wrong. I beg to differ about the "there is nowhere to move" statement. The fact that many of the laid-off IBMers I know or are acquainted with switched out successfully into other industries and careers shows that people can find new opportunities if they muster the courage and effort. And I know of no better motivation than fighting to survive (or at least maintain one's standard of living), so I have complete faith that those 5000 laid-off IBMers will find decent jobs, no matter how bleak it may appear to be. Yes, you did get it right, though I never said it explicitly: I do believe that it's better for the nation and economy that these jobs be outsourced. For that, I refer you back to Phreedm's post on page 3 with the link to the article hosted at townhall.com. I am certain that American businesses will benefit from and are pushing towards far lower costs in IT. It's the commoditization and consolidation of tech--what else can I say? Happens in every industry and is absolutely unstoppable. BTW, dddooo, you're welcome to suggest a specific solution for the 5000 IBMers, if you'd like. Don't take it personally, but I haven't seen a single solution for their plight presented in any of your posts so far... What's your recommendation?