Job Market Analysis

A lot of people were laid off recently and are struggling to find a new job in software related area. Some of them are very frustrated and want to go back or change to the fields like Chemistry, Mechanics, Accounting,  Nursery, School Teaching, etc. This is a similar situation when the internet bubble burst in the beginning of this century. 

Let’s do a little analysis of the job market related to software or computer industry.

1.) Software engineer is the best job in America.

http://www.mysoftraining.com/701/14001.html

Money Magazine had a very strong reason since it compared 7 dimensions of each occupation:
Average Salary
10-Year Growth
Average Annual Job Openings
Stress
Flexibility
Creativity
Ease of Entry

It’s not that how great the software engineer job is. It’s that the other jobs are more sucks, I think.
BTW, College Professor is #2 and Physician/Surgeon (Doctors) is #30.

2.) Computer related jobs are the fastest growing jobs from 2006 to 2016.

http://www.mysoftraining.com/701/14022.html

Supply-Demand is always the good way to analyze the market.

First let’s see the demand, computer/software are needed in virtually every part of the economy. BLS(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) consistently listed that the computer related jobs are the fastest growing jobs. Beware that these growth already considered the out sourcing fact.

The latest release was on 12/4/2007, BLS listed The 30 fastest-growing occupations, 2006-2016:
#1 Network systems & data communications                        53.4%
#4 Software engineers, application                                        44.6%
#23 Computer systems analysts                                            29.0%
#24 Database administrators                                                 28.6%
#25 Software engineer, system                                              28.2%

Second let’s see the supply. The number of computer/math college students keep dropping from 2000 to 2005, the H1 visa number dropped back in 2006 , a lot of people just left this field since they couldn’t catch up the new technology…

Then what happened in recent painful software/computer job market? I think that’s because we are in NY-NJ-CT area. The banks, financial companies got a big hit because of the subprime/credit crisis. If you are in Washington State, Taxes, etc, you can still easily find a nice job in your field. It will take 6-12 months for the market to turn around here.

3.) Job stress and training

People always complain that the IT jobs need frequent update. That’s true to any tech. jobs nowadays. Even the doctors need to finish 200 continuing-study credits ( which they have to join lessons, seminars, researches…) every 2 years to keep their license current.

If you plan properly for your training/self-training, like you are J2EE developer – gets some .NET training, you are Oracle DBA – gets some MS SQL Server training, you are Cognos guy – gets some SAP training. Or vise versa. You are never going to feel the stress when you have to use those new techs. It’s far easier than your MS or PhD degrees.

Last 6 years I helped a lot of people finding their jobs, and may the above analysis help the people in the market to go through this difficult time.