Crisis for tech workers: Life after layoffs?

[OhioChick]

As the recession deepens, IT faces fears and losses. But there are hopeful glimmers as well.

February 25, 2009

Signs everywhere point to the plight of the laid-off tech worker. Tech consultancy BearingPoint files for bankruptcy. Hewlett-Packard's profits plummet. Silicon Valley employment falls for the first time in several years. With daily layoffs and few new jobs available, techies have seen their careers careening off track -- and now they need to reinvent themselves or get off the tech train altogether.

There's no question the job market is getting worse: Companies are shifting more IT operations overseas, gutting IT staffs, and replacing seasoned veterans with cheap labor, all in a desperate effort to cut costs. Business survival trumps technical innovation. The sage advice that techies should hone their business skills to make themselves more valuable has taken on a chilling sense of urgency.

< With more than 200,000 tech workers in the unemployment line, writes InfoWorld's Bill Snyder, the H-1B visa has got to go. | As bad as the tech industry layoffs are, Tom Sullivan discovers actual job losses are not as bad as people think. | And a tech career is still safer than many others, Tom Kaneshige reports. >

So far some 200,000 tech workers have faced the firing squad, according to TechCrunch. Many are still out of work today. I've spoken to a few whose words are often laced with anger, despair, and occasionally hope. They sift through the wreckage of their careers looking for anything to salvage, such as new skills that might make them less expendable at their next gig or opportunities for consulting work to help companies fill the gaps caused by layoffs.

Then there are the downright fed-up techies ready to leave the profession. They don't see an end to outsourcing, offshoring, and H-1B labor trends driving down job opportunities and salaries. They shake a finger at the shady business practices of tech vendors like IBM, which incredulously suggested to its laid-off workers that they move to India, in lieu of collecting severance. They lament the common mistreatment of tech workers by employers.

H-1B and L-1 visa holders feel the backlash, too, as cries of national protectionism reach a fevered pitch. When Microsoft said it would lay off 5,000 people over the next 18 months, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) fired off a letter to CEO Steve Ballmer about Microsoft's "moral obligation" to protect American workers. Microsoft said a "significant number" of the first 1,400 people laid off will be foreign workers here on visas.

One H-1B worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, tells InfoWorld that she sees employers today having "a clear preference to the local population, which I think is the right thing to do." But she worries that she'll be told to pack her bags if the economy continues to slide. "I need to rethink my position in this country and maybe consider options in other countries," she says. A banner ad on the San Francisco Chronicle Web site reads, "H-1Bs, check your expiration date. Alberta, Canada, welcomes you. Permanently."

Cheap foreign labor discourages a veteran techie
Like many U.S. tech workers, Steve isn't a fan of foreign outsourcers. He's felt the sting of offshore outsourcing during his three-decade-long tech career. A technical support technician with three college degrees (including one in marketing), a dozen technical certifications, and stints at Fortune 500 companies, Steve was a recent victim of downsizing. He's had trouble finding full-time or even contract work, and blames foreign outsourcers.

Contract work dried up when India-based outsourcer Tata Consultancy Services moved into Steve's neighborhood last year. Tata gobbled up a massive IT contract from one of the area's biggest employers and transferred the work to foreign workers. "What galls me is that Tata was awarded an $18 million tax abatement for eight years, as long as it created 550 new jobs within three-and-a-half years at its headquarters here, yet that hasn't happened," says Steve, who requested anonymity as he hunts for work and takes classes on the latest technology.

More: http://www.infoworld.com/article/09/02/25/08FE-tech-layoff-scenes_1.html

No qualified U.S. IT workers, huh? Riiight....

[notadmblnd]

1. Same here 28 years. No job for the last 4

I guess I was lucky that my husband died, we had a small child so we were entitled to SS survivors benefits. That gravy train is about to end though, our son will be 16 in April. I guess, I'll finally become one of those irresponsible homeowners who bit off more than they could chew and be sleeping in the car or homeless shelter.:shrug:

[OhioChick]

2. I'm so sorry that you lost your husband...

:hug:

[notadmblnd]

3. Me too. Especially now that things seem so uncertain.

Some luck, huh?

[morillon]

4. I wish Tata would lose its ability to conduct business in the U.S.

I've had to clean up code their people wrote, and it's some of the worst crap I've seen in 20+ years in I.T. My job for the last month has been to delete 99% of the cruft their people wrote for my department. How anybody thought this code would work is beyond me.

I wish my company could get their money back. This stuff is beyond worthless.

[ihavenobias]

5. Kick.

Thanks for posting.

[Grinchie]

6. I left the Industry in 2003, never to look back

Enron was the final blow to California, especially when Gray Davis fired all of the IT Consultants working for the state. Good decent paying jobs disappeared overnight, leading me to lose the property I was preparing to spend the rest of my life on. It's kind of hard to cope when the career you've been doing for the past 22 years disappears over night.

I got behind and lost it to the Bankruptcy court, but courtroom auction drew 20 bidders, that bid the price up to the point where I came out ahead. I was too emotional about losing a dream home, but after the pain went away, I realized how lucky we were to get the hell out, move to Hawaii, and start a wonderful new life as Farmers on a large tract of land we picked up for cash.

Now that I work for myself, I can finally use my time to increase my skills, provide my own food, and keep abreast of the lunacy of the Government. It really is wonderful to go back to the land and start from scratch, providing your own water, sanitation, food and electricity. Surprisingly, it's not that hard if you study the resources available, and don't move too fast. It's good to slow down, think carefully about everything, and relax!

Every once in a while I check out the trends in Microsoft, and I have not seen anything that makes me want to jump back in, although all my former colleagues begged me until they got tired. Microsft has turned into another profit based "New Model Every Year" company, just like GM, forcing obsolescence and mandatory retraining at the "Certified Professional" franchises. Guess what Microsft, I don't buy it. A computer is a fancy calculator, I don't need an OS with fancy logos, Certification programs, or a new method to program "Hello World" every 8 months.

When you guys at Microsoft stop breaking existing software with Security Patches, or even explain why it was broken by the patch, maybe I'll consider upgrading form XP to 2007. Maybe I won't...

After all Software Engineering is very brief moments of craftmanship, with the majority of time spent figuring out why the development machine suddnly refuses to run a service that's been running for months. Life is too short to spend indoors probing the registry of Windows. Let them outsource it all, but don't count on my buying the software.

[tomreedtoon]

7. You've learned what so many haven't, Grinchie.

Namely that occupying a job just for money and power is ultimately unsatisfying. I remember some IT people who were cocks of the walk; they were high priests and magicians of these strange things called computers. They would be management some day, and practiced by being snide and cruel to the underlings when they had to change a password or point out the caps lock key.

Now their jobs are all in India, and they find that they can't even qualify for flipping burgers. I can't say that I don't feel for them or their families, but "schadenfreude" was invented for people like them. Now that they're down here with the rest of us slaves, they seem to have learned humility; charity and kindness is still awkward for them, though.

[OhioChick]

8. Stereotype much?

I got into the field because I truly enjoyed it, not for this so-called "money and power".....I've never personally seen that. Nor did I ever consider myself a "high priest" or "magician."

"schadenfreude?"

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind when I lose my job and home and my kids are hungry.

You're cruel.

[Stand and Fight]

9. Way, way over the top post.

Disgusting.

[northernlights]

10. one disappointment for me in Obama's speech

He offered a lifeline to those laid off in "this recession." Nothing for those of us dumped in the hi-tech crash-9/11 recession followed by a jobless recovery. My hi-tech career crashed in early '02 and, other than a brief stint at a tiny travel company where I made a grand $10/hour for 18 months, I've been unemployed.

No school aid for me, either, beyond minimum stafford loans. I already have a (useless) degree, so now must go into debt unto I'm about 70 to get a useful degree.

In the meantime, I saw a Brit tech writer safely ensconsed at EMC on H1-B while I knew dozens of American tech writers out of work.

I saw an Australian software sales exec here on an H1-B, while I knew dozens of American software sales execs out of work.

The saddest thing was to see so many recent grads who did what they were told and got IT degrees, now unable to get work, no way to pay their school loans, no way to get funds for retraining. I always wonder what became of them.