White House Plan to Create 600K Jobs in 100 Days Won't Help Tech

Computer World ^ | June 8, 2009 | Patrick Thibodeau

[anymouse]

Tech layoffs will continue through year-end, survey says.

The real impact of the nearly $800 billion stimulus package on shrinking IT employment remains in the future, despite President Obama's plan, announced today, to expedite hiring of some 600,000 people over the next 100 days. Many of the jobs in this summer boost will be aimed at the construction and education fields and at young people.

Meanwhile, the forecast for the next six months is for more tech sector layoffs, according to a new survey.

Of the 1,900 technology recruiters and hiring managers queried about the tech labor market by jobs board Dice.com, 43% believe that layoffs are either "likely" or "very likely" over the next six months. The semi-annual survey also found that companies are giving themselves more time to vet candidates, extending the hiring process.

(snip)

Foote said IT companies will lead the U.S. out of a recession because of the role IT plays in new product creation, delivering services and other areas.

The White House jobs announcement today will create, among other things, 125,000 summer youth jobs, 135,000 teaching and support staff jobs, and will fund construction at Veterans Administration medical centers, new waste water and treatment systems, and clean-up of Superfund Sites.

(snip)

[spintreebob]

tech has a lot of conservatives/libertarians who could not vote for either candidate.

tech is dominated by two types of people
1) Elitist technocrats who believe in central planning by the smartest ... them.

2) Those with humility that realize it is the centrally planned tech projects that fail... which is most of them.

[dalereed]

If there are 2.5 million unemployed that is $320,000 each if they spend $800 billion.

That’s totally obscene!!!

[Myrddin]

Some of the techies aren't liberal and aren't in California. It's not a rude surprise. It's looking for a new job when your old job has a pile of work to do and no money to pay for it. The only "shovel ready" work that gets funded is work done with shovels. Obama voters make a living with shovels. The proletariat must be appeased.

[Myrddin]

I did a quick search of IT on Careerbuilder.com and over 60,000 IT jobs popped up. I see well over a 200 new faces in new slots at my shop.

There's lots of jobs open...thousands of miles from where I live. I've played the game a few times. Abandon the family and earn a paycheck. I return to find my kids and dogs misbehaving. Most employers want you physically on site. The closest city with any decent tech jobs in Idaho Falls. It's 50 miles one way. I'm willing to make the drive. The commute alone is $1,000 per month.

[softengine]

Funny, my 16yo son said something similar when the bailouts were first being discussed. He said it made far more sense to just give every American 1 million dollars. There’d be no toxic debt, housing or credit based, and the economy would start moving again with an influx of cash to entrepreneurs, and families.

But helicopters...hmmmm .....every (wo)man for him/erself. I kinda like that ;)

[TornadoAlley3]

*

[blam]

I saw a report that stated most of the laid-off wre White males. How wonderful.

Explosive Video Reich, Obamas economic advisor no "White Male Construction Workers"

[manic4organic]

He actually “create or save” that many jobs. What that means, I don’t know but it’ll never happen.

[annieokie]

WPA redo.

[spintreebob]

I work in Bloomington, IL, 120 miles from my home in Chicago burbs. So I bought a house near my job and live 2 places. I have the advantage that my kids are in their 20s.

But when they were younger I took some out-of-town gigs in MN and KS. Yes, it was difficult. But it was better than going on unemployment comp.

We choose where we live, what skills we acquire and other aspects of our economic situation. We can’t make those choices and then use them as excuses.

The “work from home” jobs do exist in IT. But they certainly aren’t as numerous as the “on site” jobs. But times can change. Many companies are bring offshored jobs back to the USA. In doing so, some are still willing to accept “off site but not offshore” as a compromise ... if the person has the skills ... not the least of which is the ability to communicate in American English as opposed to difficult to understand English. A major reason for bringing the offshored jobs back here is the problems caused by poor communication.

[Myrddin]

I've been through the task of screening 400 applicants for 7 openings. Lots of H1B types with poor English, puffed up resumes and just plain lack of ability. It gets even harder when it is offshore with a 12 hour timezone offset and vastly different cultural expectations.

I'm trying to negotiate a means of spreading my remaining 318 hours of vacation through October. That means taking a 70% cut in income to keep my foot in the door. The hours are all vacation, so I'm free to fill in with other work. Resuming my current income in October is superior to anything I can find locally.

[spintreebob]

What I see at consulting clients is a frequent quote in IT magazines, white papers:

“projects are canceled just because we don’t have the
skill set internally,” says its director of operations.

“That’s going to affect the business, because the business folks are saying that they have a bright idea and they want to make it happen. It’s frustrating, because things are canceled or put on hold and it takes us longer to come to market with products or services or ways of supporting our customers.”

An IT shop has budget for 3 projects. Each project manager tries to staff-up. Each only partially succeeds. So one project is killed. One project is offshored. The surviving project then gets the onshore manpower of the other two projects (including a mix of citizens, legal and illegal immigrants). I’ve been brought in as a consultant for projects where I walk in the door for my first day and discover I’m working for a different manager and/or different project than I was interviewed and contracted for. I see it with my co-workers both employees and consultants. They think their going to be working on X but end up working on Y.

[Myrddin]

When I was at PacBell, I essentially had my own little "Bellcore" going in San Diego. There were many high risk, high reward, short fuse tasks that Bellcore simply couldn't accommodate. Their organizational inertia couldn't get the first meeting scheduled in the time I could completely solve the problem. Over a 6 year period, I returned $6 in expense savings for every $1 spent on my activities. It was lots of fun...until PacBell adopted the public company/focus on next quarter attitude. That resulted in early retirement of 6,000 employees in Dec 1991. I left with mixed emotions. I loved what I was doing, but realized that those days were over. The new crew at the executive level was driven only by next quarter's results. Over 360 major IT projects went in the trash can. Attempts to outsource them were mostly met with failure as the necessary expertise and corporate memory went out the door in Dec 1991.

It's sad to see your quotes. Especially given my prior history. It's also frustrating to be "managed" by people who don't have a clue about managing technical projects. They don't understand that the staff needs to eat even in lean times. When they finally get around to funding tasks, all the expertise has hit the bricks for any means of keeping food on the table. They have money and no staff to do the job.