[jb6]

I am in IT, for a short while longer as I finish my MBA....and good ridence to short term contracts, no promotability, declining over all pay, no stability. My father is a life long mechanical engineer and he put it quite right: when the manufacturing is all getting outsourced, who needs the engineers?

[ottothedog]

I personally prefer to contract, so that is not an issue for me. My experience has been that during that last part of the 90's rates ran up pretty nice. My opinion is that this was due to 1) dot.com bubble 2) Y2K (non) apocalypse 3) greenspan ginning up the economy due to fear of Y2K.

After the crash, rates came down quite a bit, and it was much dicier. Over the past year rates seem to be back up to late 90's rates.

The fact that manufacturing goes overseas does not imply that design/engineering will follow. I think design/engineering is going to be somewhat focused in the target markets.