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07.22.08 Problems Ahead For IT Jobs  By Dan MorrillIn the never ending need to meet ROI and keep economizing while people spend less, IT jobs are looking increasingly insecure, but like all things there is a silver lining to all the generically bad news that has been increasingly making the headlines. While we are looking more and more like a recession, and that CIO's are planning on cutting back on staff, the problem is going to come in with what kind of staff they are going to fire. For many according to computer world they will be firing contractors. Here is the silver lining, with all the help desk, programming and other jobs that have been heading overseas causing a worldwide ripple effect in technology projects, this might just be the time for independent programmers, consultants and security people to start approaching companies locally. There are something's that a company needs to do to keep their risk management processes in place. But contract employees fare much worse. In the survey, 48% of the respondents said that those staffers would be cut. And 30% of the responders said on-site third-party service provider staffers would also be cut for application-related development or maintenance work. Twelve percent of the managers said they would cut employees from offshore third-party service providers. Source: Computer World While programming projects might be shut down outright, there is always going to be a certain level of maintenance and code fixing with any programming project. If consultants, contractors, and overseas shops are the first to go, the ability to see about shopping locally for currently running projects might just be the answer. Companies that cannot afford to take on perma temps, or long term contracting roles will be much more willing on critical projects to take on short term contracting staff. Frankly, the risk of the shorter term contract is often a reason to raise hourly dollar costs. So you could as a consultant say, perma temp for 75 an hour, 6 month contract for 150 an hour, and a 3 month contact at 250 to 300 dollars an hour. Depending on whom you are dealing with, many contractor houses charge more for a short term contract than they do for perma temps.
Companies are not going to be immune to those pressures on costs, although as they cut back on staff, and cut back on projects, the shorter term contracts start to look more and more viable in the quarter to quarter market that we have currently. Critical projects, with staff augmented by consulting or contracting staff are the business model that IT has been using for about 10 years now. The perma temp issue is not going to go away, as companies are going to be loath to hire on a permanent person, but willing to spend the money for a perma temp on a critical project. While consulting and contracting is not for everyone, a company that just cannot hire more permanent staff is going to outsource a lot of the work, because they can get a better ROI on that outsource. So this might just be the best time to find your sales friends, your marketing friends, and see about doing a startup in code, code security, and a full end to end package of code, test, security, and delivery. If you find yourself amongst the proud owners of the standard pink slip, it might be time to go back to school, network heavily, and see about taking some of those 1099 jobs, or staff augmentation jobs that are going to continue to crop up over the next few years until spending starts to happen again. Comments About the Author: Dan Morrill has been in the information security field for 18 years, both civilian and military, and is currently working on his Doctor of Management. Dan shares his insights on the important security issues of today through his blog, Managing Intellectual Property & IT Security, and is an active participant in the ITtoolbox blogging community. |
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