Phil Wolff: shortage watch

Where does IT go from here?

Mon, 03 Nov 2003 18:04:03 GMT

Shelley Powers' Burningbird essay The State of Geek: Part 1 -- Temp Job, No Health says the IT labor market sucks and ain't gonna improve much. But says it better. She closes saying she wouldn't encourage kids to go into IT. My take...

Temps first. I used to be vp for strategy and technology of the world's largest staffing company. You're right about employers using temps/contractors to minimize risk at the early stages of an economic recovery. Watch quarterly reports from Manpower and Kelly for upticks in temp hiring. btw, contractors and temps are the first to go too.

Barriers to entry. In tough times it is very common for employers to raise barriers to entry since they can do so and still meet their staffing needs. Project management certification books are flying off the shelves at Amazon. And employers aren't just looking for code warriors when they can get someone with a masters or PhD in compsci for the same price. The low barrier to entry that permitted millions of "accidental" programmers to enter the workforce has let millions more continue to enter around the world. At the same time, the enterprise need for code-level customization fell through the floor.

After the offshorin'. So you're already in IT. What should you be studying now? In this economic model, what's left for US IT are jobs that require:

"high touch", like requirements professionals;
cultural sensitivity, like localization and UX pros;
proximity to systems, like the overnight sysadmin who has to physically touch a box, but with skills not much more than a cable installer;
world class niche specialists, being the world's best in corrosion algorithms, or the only people who understand documentation of military control systems in a Czech, Russian, and Spanish blend;
content creatives that use IT for artistic and aesthetic expression that resonate with world markets;
teams that use proprietary tools to achieve 10-fold leaps in productivity over developers using off-the-shelf and open source tools;
work allotted via nepotism, pork, graft;
legacy system specialists, caring for dinosaurs until the business need for them evaporates;
coordinators that can rapidly assemble the talent needed for a project and provision them with the tools to work together; and
managers that plan and deliver outsourced projects.

It shouldn't surprise you that most of these roles have steel industry counterparts.

If I had kids in school, I'd be telling them:

The future lies in molecular manufacturing (chem, physics, materials science), pharma and cognitive sciences (neurochem) all informed by IT.
Assume you need postdoc work for job security.
Learn Mandarin, Spanish, and Hindi. Along with English you'll be able to speak with more than half the world.
And start your professional networking early (Can you leave your Ryze friends list to your kids?).

"akasig"

Social Software in Recruiting.

Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:45:35 GMT

I ran into Mason Wong on Ryze in August. Mason is the staffing manager for Advent Software. I asked him if he thought Ryze-like social software would find its way into the features of staffing solutions from companies like Hire.com. He wrote:

While the fundamental mission and functionality of Ryze is to expand an individual's network while employing a relatively narrow set of criteria in identifying new contacts, the fundamental mission of Hire and the functionality of its applications are to bring efficiencies to processes involving high volumes of people and heavy criteria sets in sourcing and selection. I, too, have wondered if the similarities between Ryze and Hire can ever be enough to bridge the differences so the two worlds could connect.

I could envision a highly progressive and online savvy recruiter, with a lot more available time than any actively working recruiters that I know, trying to maintain an online community of potential job candidates using a Ryze-like guest book style site as a supplement to a more traditional email newsletter subscription list, but this really is limited to the sourcing side of recruitment, which is only one part of the full recruitment process supported by Hire-like systems.

I must admit, I have mostly doubts about the value in linking up Ryze-like social services with Hire-like systems, especially because it has been my experience that to effectively use Ryze and to effectively use Hire applications, it takes a lot of time and focus for each. Without a clearly viable profit driven model behind such an effort, I don't expect many recruiters, much less hiring managers, diving into some sort of synergy between the two.

I agree with Mason's observations but I have a few other conclusions.

Imagine that, upon signing up at your career site, job seekers got a Ryze-like page. Even better, you get a weblog and news aggregator too. You can not only look for work, but easily subscribe to job listings as RSS feeds, mingle with other data mining software engineers, post about your new explorations in technology and work.

In other words, what happens if you make it easy for job seekers to build social capital?

A few guesses...

Better Navigation. Social network features (like Technorati, blogrolls, buddy lists) make it easy locate clusters of related professionals. Job seekers are effectively answering in advance the question "Well, if you aren't available, do you know someone who is?"
Pre-branding. The knowledge reflected in the blogs, wikis, and discussion forums becomes a way for your employees to become aware of potential candidates.
Fresher Content. Bloggers tend to post frequently, hundreds of times more often than they update HR profiles or resumes. Contact information is up to date.
Transparency and Conversation. It may take getting used to, but you'll start to get useful and frank feedback about the job seeking experience, the company's products, etc. Engagement that's ongoing, perhaps throughout a career.
Career site as destination. To the degree your organization niches, your career site may be a magnet for people in related industry or occupational categories. Hang out with the other financial engineering leaders.

About your reservations, Mason, you're right for now. The positioning of the smart folks at Hire.com, and every other Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or Human Capital Management (HCM) solution, has been to automate HR bureaucracy. Their systems can save time, effort, and money in the day-to-day life of a recruiter.

This won't be enough. Skilled labor shortages will become more pronounced in the next 9-18 months. Recruiter workflow optimization, once executed, is yielding diminishing returns.

So where do you put your next staffing dollar? The inputs to the process: job seekers.

Manufacturing went through the same deep shift, widening from an internal focus to an external focus. From managing internal logistics to reaching outside the corporate boundary to the external supply chain. None of the new skills and practices, like MRP or quality circles, were abandoned. Attention widened to include a network of suppliers. And new practices emerged to better harmonize the internal and external.

When raw material is talent, the processes are more difficult than manufacturing lives with. The products are widely differentiated (people don't have SKUs). What they can do and where they fit changes day to day. The goods can't be moved when and where needed via UPS. And, unlike a can of soup, these goods have opinions and desires of their own.

So ATS and HCM vendors can expect pressure to serve this new focus. Employers like you will demand features that create value for candidates. Increasing a job seeker's social capital is just one type of value, one that Ryze supports.

So I see a future for Ryze's in HR.

As extensions to the career relationship.
As new tools for data mining.
As personal branding tools.
As a retention tool, binding workers to your intranet and extranet social networks.

After all, schmoozespace isn't so far from recruiting, is it?

[aka staffing]

11th Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology. 9-12 Sept 2003.

Mon, 08 Sep 2003 20:13:33 GMT

It's time again to stretch your brain. If you're in the Bay Area this week, drive to Burlingame for the 11th Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology.

If you're old enough you may remember how fascinating it was that someone could write the Declaration of Independence on the back of a stamp, or carve miniature sailing ships in a bottle. Ummm, this is smaller.

I can follow the presentations with my college chem1A memories. The good news: tutorials start tomorrow.

Most of the research being presented is 2-5 years from commercialization. You can see where the scientists are putting their time and their investors are betting their money. For those who want to understand the trajectory of this transformational technology, and get a realistic feel for the short term timeline, there are few better places to spend this week than the San Francisco Airport Marriott. btw, I'm a huge fan of the Foresight Institute.

With my background in marketing management and software engineering, nanotechnology is a huge stretch for me. Especially if I want to add value. As in IT, the bleeding edge today is boring routine in 12 months. So I have to both catch up and climb on the new treadmill. There's nothing like a challenge.

Should I make a career shift from IT to nano/bio? Larry Ellison says...

Mon, 08 Sep 2003 16:11:10 GMT

The San Francisco Chronicle: On The Record: Larry Ellison:

Ellison pulled out a crystal ball when asked what Silicon Valley will be like in five or 10 years: "It's going to be a lot more like Detroit than like Silicon Valley. The great news is we're going to be the molecular biology hub for the world, but we will have more competition -- in San Diego, in Boston, in Tel Aviv. But the gestation period of a company in molecular biology is very different from that of a software company. The returns will be slower in coming, so the whole metabolism of the valley will have to be retuned for that industry."

So, can I use my C# skills in molecular biology? Will we start teaching gene splicing to grade schoolers, so they'll be ready for college?

How fast will the jobs return?

Sun, 31 Aug 2003 01:00:31 GMT

Mason Wong asked, "What kind of job market recovery do you think the nation will experience? Slow and gradual recovery over years? Sudden and surprising surge 6 months from now?"

The big factors that concern me in addition to the usual macro indicators:

How much are VCs and banks funding the small business entrepreneurs who create most of the jobs in any recovery?
- Ask around. New money isn't available.
Will the increase in Federal borrowing (to meet budget deficits) suck up the money available for lending used for business expansion?
- Could force interest rates up.
Will the Bush/Cheney trickle-down economic policy still be in force?
- Trickle-down stimulus is slower and less direct than every other means.
Will resolution of California Gubernatorial and Presidential elections reduce managerial fear and anxiety? In what direction will the results of those elections move consumers?
Will the average American think our $1 billion a week spending on Afghanistan and Iraq will help or hurt the U.S. economy?
Is the resumption of a wartime footing and military-industrial complex redirecting innovation (the employment multiplier) from the private sector?
- Smart people often follow the money. But more jobs are usually made when a new technology sells to the worldwide market instead of just Uncle Sam.
How fast and far will labor market arbitrage drive down domestic white collar wages, so IT jobs remain here instead of move to India?
- You're a CIO. Would you resist offshoring your help desk (saving you $2 of $4) if your local workers offer to take a 60% pay cut? A 50% pay cut? How about cutting the pay of your senior software engineers from $75k to $40k a year, and the juniors from $35 to $20?
- You're a programmer. Would you take those cuts?
How badly will state and local government downsizing create new unemployment or impose new costs that stifle economic growth?

I'm neither an inspired fortune teller nor an informed Mr. Greenspan. I'm betting on fits and starts, uneven growth from county to county and state to state, and a relapse after the 2004 election should Bush win. "akasig"

Call for blawgers: "I own my blog" boilerplate for employment agreements.

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 17:19:11 GMT

One in 4 or 5 bloggers will start a new job this year. Maybe 750 thousand. They and their blogs are at risk.

Ever walk out of a job interview only to discover that you've signed away

(a) your right to blog on your own site,

(b) the freedom to post from work, and

(c) that if you violate a or b, your employer will lay claim to your weblogs, confiscate them, fire you, and sue you?

Employment and confidentiality agreeements frequently have language like this.

I want a piece of paper that I can bring to the interview, that the employer's agent can sign, that preserves my blog, my rights to blog, my ownership of my blog, and explicit freedom from retaliation for anything I post.

I want a similar piece of paper that a union bargaining unit can use.

Is there a Creative Commons style of packaging that can make it easy to create this boilerplate?

Any blawgers who'd care to suggest such language? "akasig"

Offshoring, body counts and productivity: 'Why Moving to India Won't Really Help IT'

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 15:46:02 GMT

Gil Friend:

A larger question here, aside from the direct impact on companies that Cringely flags, is the relationship between micro and macro considerations here. The quest for ever lower labor costs may make competitive sense for individual companies (at least those that view labor as an expense rather than an investment), but what happens as it cuts the purchasing power of the US workforce? What happens as China evolves from a low cost labor haven into a serious technical competitor than can give US (and European) companies a run for their money?

The signs are already showing. Tech companies that moved manufacturing to China to cut labor costs 85% are now finding, to their surprise, quality of engineers, plants and infrasturcture comparable to any in the world.

["aka"]

The Feds centralize recruiting. Salvation or Pandora's Box?

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 03:27:35 GMT

Every U.S. government agency has a "careers" or "jobs" page. Under new orders, you won't find jobs there. Or be able to apply for them. For that, go to a portal run by the Office of Personnel Management.

Benefits:

Faster security clearance and background checks.
Able to mine more "resumes".
Able to browse more jobs.
Chance to simplify the application process.

Concerns:

Privacy. Or lack thereof. Could be a Total Information Awareness branding snafu.
Bland Branding. Forcing everyone to recruit with the same forms, the same tools, makes it harder for job seekers to tell employers apart, to choose the right jobs.
Choked Innovation. This makes the Fed's recruiting ecosystem homogenous, succeptible to advances in computing. Also means fewer internal innovations.
Single Point of Failure. Technically, organizationally, and fiscally.
Raiding the Private Sector. If the economy starts generating jobs, the Feds may make the war for talent even stronger.

Suggestions:

Federate, don't centralize. Reaffirm your investment in department career sites.
Open the jobs database to public programmers. Follow the lead of Amazon, eBay, and Google.

Quovix is hiring a project manager.

Mon, 21 Jul 2003 12:27:13 GMT

President Marty Morrow posted this project manager gig to his blog a few weeks' ago. As outsourcing and offshoring grow, so will Quovix, a project/product management collaborative software company.

You have a shortage? We have the manpower.

Wed, 16 Jul 2003 01:28:54 GMT

Did you know Pakistan has a minister for labour, manpower, and overseas Pakistanis? Abdul Sattar Lalika expects 200,000 people to emmigrate for work. This is double the previous year. They have interesting problems, like a nursing shortage (5 doctors to one 1 nurse); nurses leave for U.S. and Europe.

Any doubts this is a worldwide labor market?

AO: software development goes abroad for good.

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 07:52:14 GMT

An Always On discussion thread. Hold on to your IDEs, American programers: the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming. And the Chinese. And the Indians. And the Irish. I wrote:

If you can move work to the next building because of IM, email, file sharing, SCM, etc., you can move it a thousand miles.

The questions should be:

What work is very hard to move?
What advantages can we create that will be hard to follow?
What limitations of remote work can we exploit?

My gut reaction is to force jobs to stay here. My head knows that doesn't work well. So the challenge is how to move up, do better, and justify a ten-fold premium over market rates.

You don't export the requirements process, the warmth of high touch service, the intimate understanding of local and industry culture and behavior. That work remains bound to the constantly evolving local domain.

But instead of the handoff going to construction engineers across the room, the customer-aligned tasks go to Irkutsk or wherever the market dictates.

This means, of course, that those who collect requirements must do a much better job, produce clearer and more specific functional specs, test requirements documents for usability and the prevailing criteria for quality, manage shorter iterations, and conduct more rigorous acceptance testing.

The new integration costs and risks are real and substantial, especially across language, culture, legal, financial and political boundaries. If two Houstonians can make communication mistakes, you know it is more difficult when working through translators (surprise surprise but most people don't speak, read, or write English at all, let alone fluently). And culture-centric ideas like courtesy and privacy vary across industries and generations, let alone regions. All parties have currency risk and in some places material poltical and safety risks (work interruptions or delays because of violence, war, government corruption, or other things that happen in the U.S.).

But the separation of user/customer relationship from engineering/construction creates value. It gives freedom to shop for the best partners you can trust. To bid for world class performers in niche specialties for the strategic parts of your project. To make your customers' biases and assumptions explicit, perhaps for the first time. To get more satisfying tradeoffs between scope, schedule, budget, quality and risk.

This looks good for those who buy software development services. Prices "rationalized", quality varied but improving with experience.

How will this affect those who market packaged software to consumers? To businesses?

What career advice would you give a US programmer with ten years' experience? A compsci student in Mexico City?

What knowledge, skills, and abilities will the new offshore software brokers need?

What would an insurer want to know before selling you a completion bond for offshore work?

What process might buy you a sustained competitive advantage as a London game development firm?

p.s. The author of the initial post has financial ties with the AO operators. This isn't disclosed in the post. Be up front, please.

p.p.s. More gripes about AO's design (courtesy of prock+jaffe creative):

Comments don't have permalinks.Add permalinks, dudes!
Comments aren't listed in chronological order. Topics in reverse chron, Comments in chron order. Have you ever tried to follow a thread from the wrong direction? Argh!
No RSS feed for comment threads. Feed me!
Site not accessible to the visually impaired. Pass the Bobby test!
Rewrites html, destroying lists, html entities, and link attributes. Let me express myself!
Member profile pages don't show all of a person's posts and comments. They should.
Don't call posts "blogs" when they are posts.
Enable trackback.
Human readable urls, please.

p.p.p.s. What roles should blogs and wikis play in coordinating work across national boundaries?

Exporting software development is good for American software engineers.

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 17:25:56 GMT

Roland Tanglao takes exception to an AO post. The post...

How efficient is it to pay a software engineer in the Valley a loaded salary of $170,000, the average salary reported in the fourth quarter of 2001, when Asian engineers provide a much better value? We've all read the cost differentials between US and Indian, Vietnamese and Chinese workers. And one of the main reasons this work went overseas is because clients knew they were being gouged by US engineers and consultants. After all, programming is, essentially, production work. And is labor not the most expensive variable component of a software product?

Roland...

Good software is not production work. If this guy had ever actually developed good software, he'd know.

There's a huge fork in software development. If you can define scope clearly and it seems like a straightforward thing to build, then you shop it to a code farm.

On the other hand, if the scope is fuzzy, elastic and frequently changing, and there are elements of novelty (never done that before), sub-cultural awareness (how do our surgical nurses model their work process), you may need local auteurs.

When the business schools started to teach MIS 30 years' ago, you could tell that whole categories of software work would become routine. Both the problem set and the tool set had no barriers to entry. We have a million programmers in North America because of lighter weight problems and easier to use tools. That same lack of barriers makes it easy for India, China, and the rest of the world to enter our labor market.

The things that don't fit?

Thorny problems. Intractable ones that take deep scientific education and grad school maths. Edison problems that require years of tinkering to get the chemistry just right. Collaborative ones that involve close knit teams of world class experts.

Proximity. Where the development team must work intimately with the customer, eating and breathing with them.

And those barriers won't last. When you throw mass quantities of smart people at an education system, like they are doing in India and China, the bell curve says some will become world class computer scientists. People who invent things, who break through conventional thinking, who upset the apple cart. And they will compete with the industrial world's best and brightest.

So you have a few choices.

Get your PhD in computer science.
Become a product manager or product requirements manager, because outsourcing demands coordination.
Become a world class specialist in a technology or an application, one of the top 5 in a very narrow field.
Or get out.

FUCK THAT JOB: a weblog.

Sat, 15 Mar 2003 08:51:50 GMT

Sometimes you gotta love the job seeker's voice. Tanya B's weblog, Fuck That Job, has been a nine month rant on the pain of finding a job.

Her tagline:

My answer to employers taking advantage of folks having a hard time finding a job in this economy. Job hunting daily is bad enough without having to deal with employers who want you to speak Swahili for low or no pay.

She quotes horribly written job ads, unbelievable correspondence between recruiters and candidates, and engineering jobs paying below the poverty line. You can feel the vitriol ooze through the html.

Local talent, sourcing help Matsushita Electric survive in China

Wed, 12 Mar 2003 04:50:50 GMT

Asahi Shimbun reports Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., after 15 years in China, stopped importing parts from Japan in favor of making parts with local, cheaper labor. Keeping up with the competition, especially when labor is a key factor of production costs.

Not too novel.

Now they're moving R&D to China.

Matsushita stopped making microwaves in Kentucky in November 2000, and shifted production to Shanghai.

Matsushita is shifting not only production but also research and development to China. It established two R&D centers-one in Beijing in January 2001 and the other in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, in April 2002.

At the Suzhou center, about 40 Chinese engineers are set to start developing air conditioners, which will be produced at a plant in Guangzhou. The company is also considering developing Internet-connected household appliances in Suzhou.

If Matsushita is to successfully shift its R&D to China, a crucial factor will be finding local talent willing to work for the firm.

At its Beijing center, Matsushita has about 100 engineers working on mobile phones and digital television. The company has tied up with Tsinghua University and other local schools, and has started developing third-generation mobile phones.

"The key is how much excellent Chinese talent we can recruit and how long we can keep those people with us," Ozawa said.

You're not safe just because you're smart, educated, and wear a pocket protector. White collar work is nearly as mobile as factory work. So contemplate your future.

Knobel rounds up Depopulation of Europe and Japan.

Mon, 10 Mar 2003 07:18:01 GMT

Lance Knobel nicely sums up the analysis.

By 2050, the European population is predicted by the UN Population Fund to be down to 600 million, from 725 million today (those figures include estimates for immigration). If the trend continues, Europe would be down to 475 million by the end of the century.

A 20 percent drop in 50 years. That's like losing France. A 50 percent drop in 100. That's like losing Scandinavia and Germany too.

Four responses:

"public resources must be shifted from helping the old to assisting families with children"

"as part of pension reform, there must be an across-the-board attack on obstacles to higher labour force participation, particularly by people over 60 years of age"

"obstacles to productivity growth must be removed" and

"immigration must be managed".

The shape of things to come.

I was hoping for a few generations of massive immigration from the Middle East, India, and China. An excuse for the exchange of cultural values and experiences. Dubya's political provocations may have put that off for a generation.

How will we stagger toward that future? What compromises and sacrifice must we endure?

The Effects of Global Aging on the Global Workforce.

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 10:37:40 GMT

The Effects of Global Aging on the Global Workforce from the Hudson Institute. A bit of depth on the formula:

Global Aging
+ Regional Factors
+ Policy Options
+ Wildcards
= Workforce Outcomes

This article, by Hudson's Gary Geipel, cites:

Beyond Workforce 2020, coming in 2004.
United Nations (UN) projections
The Aging Vulnerability Index

Sorta scary, and the choices aren't attractive. Worth scanning.

Russell Beattie on the Spanish Job Market.

Tue, 25 Feb 2003 00:36:08 GMT

Russell opines on why Spanish IT salaries are half those in the US. I'm torn: he almost makes it seem worthwhile. Four weeks of vacation, additional sick leave, two hour lunches.

Caprice: the new face of reputation management.

Wed, 19 Feb 2003 03:45:10 GMT

Some wiseacre on HR Gateway.com is telling everyone that branding your business to potential employees is old hat and off the mark.

Staying ahead means forgetting about the ‘bizarre idea’ of employee branding. It is a matter of reputation management, fluidity and offering employees what they want:

"Employee branding is consigned to where it should be: the garbage can. You can brand your business, your products, your service, but not your people. They belong to themselves, not you. Remember they want to be themselves at work.

"My advice is: don’t stick labels on talent, they don’t really want it and they won’t thank you for it. If they feel good about your business they’ll let you know and they’ll tell others on their own terms, not yours," concludes Johnson.

Do I hear "Gonzo Marketing" in the wind?

Tue, 18 Feb 2003 06:51:35 GMT

Australia: War threat blamed for weakening job prospects.

Wed, 05 Feb 2003 07:19:53 GMT

ABC Online:

A regular survey by the ANZ Bank shows that in January there was a recovery of only 4.3 per cent in newspaper job advertisements after a 12.5 per cent slump in December.

But ANZ chief economist Saul Eslake says they are still suggestive of some slowing in employment growth. "The most obvious factor giving rise to hesitancy on the part of employers about creating new jobs would be the heightened geopolitical uncertainty associated with the seemingly growing risk of another military conflict in the Middle East."

Labor markets factor risk into supply, demand, and pricing. Just like securities markets.

[a klog apart staffing]

Two-thirds of UK workers earning under national average.

Wed, 05 Feb 2003 07:19:32 GMT

via HR Gateway

The gap between the highest and lowest paid in the UK continues to grow pushing the gender gap wider also.

A two-tier workforce is growing in the UK with pay for top earners growing quicker than the rest of the workforce, according to new figures released today.

Two-thirds of workers now earn under the national average gross weekly income of £465, claims the Income Data Services (IDS) report, with pay for top earners booming over the past decade.

‘The average earnings figure has been pulled upwards, leaving a growing majority of full-time employees below the average. This trend has been particularly strong since 1997,' states the report.

Analysing the growing disparity of earnings in Britain, the report shows that, in the past decade, earnings of the top 10% of employees have climbed by nearly 54%, while the lowest 10% of full-time workers have seen their earnings rise by just 45.6%.

In the past 12 years the percentage of workers earning under the national average weekly gross has grown from 61.2% to 64.6%, with the largest year on year jump of one per cent coming between 2001-2002.

What are the characteristics that separate the two groups? Parental income? How much parental income? Region? School? How much and what types? What factors go along with race and gender?

Can you still promise upward mobility through education and hard work? How do you make education more attractive than soccer and professional wrestling?

Can neurological sciences develop pills and potions to increase your value in the labor market? Make you smarter, stronger, more alert, happier? Endurance to work longer?

What happens to a society when the rich get richer? Are UK political parties aligned along paycheck?

Is this split true in the U.S. and other industrial nations too?

[a klog apart shortage watch]

Jobless man: 9-11 was our 1929.

Tue, 04 Feb 2003 10:07:45 GMT

Sandwiched between a rock and a hard place
Jobless man sees plight as sign of the times
San Francisco Chronicle
Feb 2 2003 5:52AM ET

"I really believe we're heading into another worldwide Great Depression, and I don't see anything being done to change that direction," says Weiss. "Sept. 11 was our 1929."
"When I was a kid, the old-timers said they survived because people helped each other. We're going to have to learn to do that again."

The Bush Depression.

Bush quashing unpleasant employment stats.

Sat, 01 Feb 2003 08:45:55 GMT

From Business Week, February 10, 2003 issue :

BUSH LEAGUE
Stats: Now You See 'em...

Since President Bush took office two years ago, the economy has lost some 1.7 million jobs, making job creation a sore point around the White House. Now, either by coincidence or by design, two agencies have taken actions that make the Administration's unremarkable record on jobs a little harder to spot.

The President's own Council of Economic Advisers has yanked off its Web site a study predicting mediocre job growth from Bush's proposed $674 billion economic stimulus plan. The study forecast a modest 170,000 more jobs than would otherwise be created--0.1% of the workforce--every year through 2007, on average. The study was pulled within two days of Bush's Jan. 7 speech. In spite of its action, the council says it stands behind the numbers.

And on Christmas Eve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics quietly announced that it would no longer publish the mass-layoff statistics it had been putting out since 1994. The stats used to be used by states to help determine where to spend on job-retraining programs. "We're losing information we really need," complains Henry Jackson, director of Illinois' Division of Economic Information & Analysis. Labor officials say that the resulting savings of $6.6 million annually will be diverted directly to states for job training.
By Peter Coy and Laura Cohn

Something like $60 billion a year is spent by companies and workers making the labor markets work. $6.6m is a rounding error. Government stats are some of the cheapest planning tools you can trust. Government neutrality, longevity, and transparency make the data valuable. This kind of expense, centralized, creates value; spread among 50+ state agencies: paperclips.

Shortsighted.

Can you imagine any non-political reason for supressing the truth? Perhaps terrorists are involved?

Just shrubbery.

Do CIOs remember how to hire programmers?

Thu, 30 Jan 2003 19:54:05 GMT

This is the tiny miniature edition of Job Hunting for Dummies. 125 3"x3" pages, 50 words per page. A quick, easy, pointed read. Only $5, fits in the change pocket of your jeans.

Your job hunting skills matter. More, when competing for work market like this. Process and packaging join pricing and positioning as your promote yourself as product. It's not enought to be good, you have to play the game to win.

Then again, it may be fruitless to try.

CIOs and CTOs squashed new software construction for two or three years. If the Bush recession continues, it may be four. They learned:

to do without,
to tweak the old stuff,
to work on process and humanware,
to buy off-the-shelf,
to rent engineers from Russia, India, and Canada,
to outsource.

Their behavior changed. Then their hiring behavior. Conditioning reinforced by a ruthless economy.

So when firms fill their IT budgets again, when customers demand new IT solutions, will companies even remember how to hire and run their own development teams? Can they afford the luxury?

Not like before. Fielding an in-house product engineering team will be the exception.

So try something else.

Your job hunting skills (tactics) matter less than career changing skills (strategy). Rebranding change neither your product nor the labor markets in which you swim. It may be time to migrate, to a new city, a new industry, a new occupation. If you can stomach risk, now may be the time for you to try free agency and entrepreneurship.

What's your purple cow? What makes you astounding? Compelling?

What would it take for a small team of 5 senior software engineers in Manhattan to compete with 50 senior software engineers working in a CMM environment in Bangalore? 100 call center professionals in St. Louis competing with 1000 workers in Bombay sporting midwest accents?

Good luck.

Dave Winer, job seeker.

Fri, 03 Jan 2003 00:21:16 GMT

Dave Winer, software pioneer and entrepreneur, is on the market.

Believe it or not I'm applying for a job in academia, so it's time to put together my curriculum vitae. It's a fancy name for a resume. Basically, the job I want to do is the one I have been doing, with some extras (like teaching), but not in the context of a commercial software company. more...

I think Dave is following his heart. He may have had his fill for now of the daily small business owner grind. And UserLand may be poised for new management and new directions. We'll stay tuned.

p.s. Now is the time for Dave to make weblogs more useful in job search.

Start by acknowledging that CVs are made from microcontent. Then...

Support HR-XML "Resume" protocol, syndicate CVs via RSS.
Create a blogging user and programmatic interface for creating and maintaining a CV.
Make it easy to associate posts with specific jobs, projects, and skills.
Make job availability clearly visible.

Blogging tools should turbocharge your career search.

[a klog apart's Bloggers for Hire]