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11.11.08 Don't Be So Quick To Jump The IT Ship For Good  By Dan MorrillOne of the negative aspects of the current economic troubles is that there are a lot of folks dropping out of IT, and many of them plan on staying away from corporate IT forever. When we look at people who are getting termed from Corporate IT and you sit down and talk to them, the common thread amongst them is that they are really out of IT for good, or going into private business for themselves so that they do not have to deal with the continual round of boom and bust that companies seem to have adopted as a business model. Many of the people I know are becoming contractors, some are going and starting their own businesses focusing on IT, and some are simply bailing out of the entire industry. This is going to cause problems down the road, as much as we saw problems when the economy started picking back up in 2002/2003, there were not enough people to fill the gaps, causing an even greater strain on the H1B visa program, and the continuing call for workers to replace those that had bailed from the industry altogether. We are headed down the same path, with layoffs in 2008 and going forward into 2009 is going to so reduce the IT infrastructure of the country that we will be hard pressed to bring in or even find new IT workers in 2010 when the economy starts picking up again. This kind of issue will complicate the H1B visa issue, and open the door to more fraud than has been discovered to date as companies increasingly try to hire from a shallow pool of talent.
This also has serious implications for the innovation and research side of the company as well. Finding great talent is hard enough, focusing on the top ten percent of workers is a given in the IT Industry now leaves a lot of workers wondering what they are going to be doing next as a way to make money and support their families. From a working view point, many will go back into industry, but not necessarily IT when the economy starts to pick up again, some will start their own consulting companies, while the rest will move on and go do something else. The interesting part to see if how people will come back to industry, if they will have a more "in it for me" mentality knowing that in 2016/2017 (following the 6 or 7 year boom bust cycles that we have been seeing for the last 20 years) the same thing will happen all over again. Once people get used to a rhythm of boom and bust, they can help themselves by evening out the peaks and valleys by saving money, or using the boom times to build out on skills that will be needed even in a bust sharp downturn to the economy. Whatever people decide that they want to do, the harder part for companies is that they are going to lose a lot of skills that are going to be needed when the economy picks up. If you are looking ahead as a company to 2010 and 2011, then you might want to see about getting those people in before the general rush hits, say start seriously thinking about hiring mid 2009. This will help out people, and give the new employees the six month ramp up time to be useful so that when the economy starts to pick up in 2010 you are positioned to hit the ground running with whatever product you have. 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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