John Doe wrote:
...snip...
My comment really related to the quality of the work these "IT professionals" are producing. Mainly
related to government webpages that work reliably only with a particular browser on a particular
operating system. However, I understand Friday the 13th had a few of the IT minions in a flap as the
Centrelink/DEIR(?)/Job Network staff all twiddled their thumbs for some time.
> Hmmm. Sack a heap of people in an industry already struggling (second biggest collapse of an
> industry next to the farming industry due to drought) and then replacing them with the unemployed.
> Where are all the IT people going to work. I would think they would be then unemployed. You should
> go into politics.
IT employment as you knew it is going to get worse. We are doomed to have an oversupply of "IT
professionals" for the next decade +. For the last couple of year, educational institutions at all
levels have been turning out "trained" IT people in over abundance.
I've already seen many degree trained entry level positions for ~$20K pa. Five years ago,
it was $35K.
It is going to get worse. Our local TAFE college has tried to retrench teachers of welding, panel
work, machining, horticulture and hospitality. These are all areas where there is local employment
that requires their qualification.
They want to replace these with more IT courses. The reason given was because all an IT course
requires is a desk and a computer. There is a bare minimum of IT employment locally. All these IT
trained people will have to commute into Sydney CBD (60minutes).
Of course, there will be IT people who are doing well because they are in a niche that takes time
for people to migrate into. Eventually some of this wave will wash out their niche (or it will
shrivel like DEC Vax, CPM, NCR, HP?, etc).
Commodisation (sp?) is another factor that is bitting away at IT employment. For the last 15 years
"supermarkets" have been eating into the small end/SOHO. Harvey Norman was first when they started
selling software, at prices lower that a lot of small shops can buy it. Now we have Aldi and
Strathfield Car Radios selling computer hardware way cheaper than the small guys can purchase it.
Don't think this doesn't flow upwards either. More companies can still see the value of buying brand
name CPU boxes, but are adding on yum-cha hard disks and cases to enhance these boxes. Why pay
$1,000 for a HP Scsi CD burner, when you can get a CD burner for under $200?
Support: I know of one local company that is planning on doing away with their IT monkey and
existing suppliers and going to contract support. The owner thinks he can get good service from
these kids advertising "we come to you" computer support for $17/hour.
The bottom line is that IT is like other areas and continually changing. Consider transport. We
walked first, horses worked well for a while (but choked cities with manure), bicycle made a splurge
throughout the country (shearers, circumnavigate the world) and displaced horses in cities (BHP
steel works 19th/20th century), public/mass transport struggles on and the motor car currently
drowns our western societies in metal, plastic, fumes and dead, dying and injured people.
--
Terry Collins {
}}} email: terryc at woa.com.au www:
http://www.woa.com.au Wombat Outdoor
Adventures <Bicycles, Computers, GIS, Printing,
Publishing>
"People without trees are like fish without clean water"