Thread: How bad is bad

I keep hearing the market is bad, but this article just seems to make it worse and worse. Have any of you been a victim of loss of employment? Is it really this bad?

yes lost employment due to a shift in the market.

Also got more work in other areas.

IT is not as good as it once was but it is what I want to do (until I can afford not to do anything)

I have the impression that it's improving, no?

I have now been unemployed for over 2½ years. My in box gets several hits a day from "matches" to my online CV, but most of them are hopeless, and how they "matched" is beyond my comprehension. One I have had several times is as a buyer for childrens toys for a supermarket chain - go figure that one out!

I think the recruiting firms send progressively more and more fringe relevent jobs to show that they are at least doing something, and that sending nothing for a couple of weeks would have people calling them to find out what was wrong.

The colleges and universities churn out inexperienced newbies. These are cheap to employ and some find work, for the rest, they are generally not encumbered by mortgages and other trappings of middle class life, so a "temporary" excursion into burger flipping or table waiting doesn't impact.

Firms that have a project, recruit consultants and contractors that they can be rid of when the need goes away. With the global economy so slow, firms are not investing in new IT systems. They are struggling to survive themselves as demand for their products is slow. Thus service industries like IT suffer because the client firms "make do" with what they've got until the market picks up.

The market has been said to pick up in 2-3 quarters, the wise men that say that have been saying it for some years now. It's a bit stale.

Originally Posted by adrianxw

I have now been unemployed for over 2½ years. My in box gets several hits a day from "matches" to my online CV, but most of them are hopeless, and how they "matched" is beyond my comprehension. One I have had several times is as a buyer for childrens toys for a supermarket chain - go figure that one out!

I think the recruiting firms send progressively more and more fringe relevent jobs to show that they are at least doing something, and that sending nothing for a couple of weeks would have people calling them to find out what was wrong.

The colleges and universities churn out inexperienced newbies. These are cheap to employ and some find work, for the rest, they are generally not encumbered by mortgages and other trappings of middle class life, so a "temporary" excursion into burger flipping or table waiting doesn't impact.

Firms that have a project, recruit consultants and contractors that they can be rid of when the need goes away. With the global economy so slow, firms are not investing in new IT systems. They are struggling to survive themselves as demand for their products is slow. Thus service industries like IT suffer because the client firms "make do" with what they've got until the market picks up.

The market has been said to pick up in 2-3 quarters, the wise men that say that have been saying it for some years now. It's a bit stale.

This is exactly the reason why I've chosen to go into engineering instead of computer science. I figure, if I get a degree in a harder major, and do at least SOME research (I'm setup to be doing a project with voice recognition software using Neural Nets, because one professor was impressed with some of the other stuff I was doing) I'll have a better chance of getting a job I want, with the proper benefits and reasonable salary.

Originally Posted by SourceCode

Engineering is harder? Why is this? What makes it so much harder?

Because instead of being a code monkey you actually design real world things. It's quite a bit more difficult than someone just saying "write this"

Originally Posted by Darkness

This is exactly the reason why I've chosen to go into engineering instead of computer science. I figure, if I get a degree in a harder major, and do at least SOME research (I'm setup to be doing a project with voice recognition software using Neural Nets, because one professor was impressed with some of the other stuff I was doing) I'll have a better chance of getting a job I want, with the proper benefits and reasonable salary.

I have an engineering degree. If the jobs aren't there they aren't there.

I was out of work for 8 months before I landed this job. Hooray.

> which field of engineering?

Computer Engineering

> What job?

Right now I'm just programming; in Access, no less. Beats the hell out of working at Blockbuster, which is what I was doing.

> When did you get the degree?

December of last year, Kettering University.

> Anything else about it/the situation you might like to add.

College was cool, working sucks.

> may often have a harder time affording them.

Any company that can't afford a couple extra grand a year probably isn't going to be a company much longer.

there are a lot of jobs being lost and thats because india and other countries have IT proffesionals that are just as good as the people over here but only get paid like 10000 a year, which is a lot of money over there. and you cant really expect companies not to outsource jobs, when they can pay wages (legally) that are below what is considered minimum here.

>>and you cant really expect companies not to outsource jobs

Once upon a time in a land far, far from here there was a company with social responsibility.
A company that did things out a motive not associated with increasing its profit.

Originally Posted by novacain

>>and you cant really expect companies not to outsource jobs

Once upon a time in a land far, far from here there was a company with social responsibility.
A company that did things out a motive not associated with increasing its profit.

I am going to play devil's advocate here, just so the other side of the story can come out, but try not to take it the wrong way, because I know where you are coming from. Here's the conservative approach:

- The purpose of a business is to create profit
- Telling CEOs of companies who they can and cannot hire is viewed as un-American.
- If you were the CEO of a company, can you honestly say you would hire fewer Americans, at a greater cost, and hurt your profits?

edit:
It's also a bit sketchy for me to say too much as I'm still a student, and I'm not burdened with the real life dilemma of needing to find a career, yet. I just hope the economy fluxes in my favor by the time I get a degree.

Sept 2001 out of work until June 2002. Worked form June 2002 until March 2004, then lost job again. Now I have to jobs one as a test proctor and the other as a sales clerk. Now, making 60% less than I used to. If it gets any worse I'm going back to my coconut tree with its oceanic view.

When the economy is bad, the question is how long can your industry "rides the wave before your affected."

Anyway I still have C/C++