Worst of recession is past but tech jobs harder to find

The Confederation of British industry has declared the worst of the recession to be over, but techies are still finding it a struggle to find work, with unemployment not set to peak until next year. The CBI, which represents almost a quarter of a million companies, said that UK GDP should flatten out in the coming months, with …

[Vince Lewis 1]

Not that strange

[It also seems strange that almost half of IT pros are presumably relying on newspaper ads and job centres to find high-tech jobs, rather than using "online networking".]

Not that strange, 1/2 of my IT jobs where found via the Local paper. And there's a lot of logic to this on both sides of the employment fence.

Employer's are likely to find a local IT resource. This hopefully means a Employee that doesn't have a killer commute and thus happier. There are companies that are proud to support the local economy. And there's no agency fees.

For the Job hunter, it means your more likely to find a local job and you're also going to competing with fewer applicants.

True most of these IT jobs are going to be for SME's but its still IT work.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Yeah right

The worst financial implosion in a century, a lethal mix of deleveraging and collapsing demand, a world economy beset by excessive debt, falling asset values and increasing costs - but the worst is already behind us? Whatever...

I know it's the Vested-Interest Brigade talking but honestly; a little interest in economic history might help.

[Anonymous Coward]

Green Shoots...

The UK economy is recovering. And in other news the Government announced that 2 + 2 = 5.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit

The worst recession since the great depression is over!

These Muppets should donate their salary's to the poor, because they clearly do not deserve them. The imbalance between money and commodity caused by the criminal banking practices has still not been rectified.

Lesson to bankers

You can not invent money without making all the existing money worth less.

end of lesson

[Steve Button]

LinkedIn

Presumable "online networking" means sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo, and not sites like JobServe and Monster which don't really cover the networking side.

I don't think many IT Pros use the newspaper any more.

I am disgusted by El Reg and removing you from my bookmarks (again)

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course...

... whoever wins the next election will claim responsibility when unemployment starts to fall again. Then nobody will want to vote for anyone else for another 12 years of the same crap.

[AceRimmer]

Duh

I just heard a certain experienced IT proffesional by the name of Sean Hughes complaining on You and Yours that his local job center were unable to find him a decent job and because of this he was now struggling to pay bills.

Hopefully this recession will convince the likes of him that working IT is too intellectually demanding and he'll piss off to teaching.

Seriously how can someone with such a lack of initiative expect to hold down anything but the most basic job in IT is beyond me.

[Anonymous Coward]

What job shortage

My employer has just taken on a load more Big Blue Indian Contractors, presumably because they can't find qualified staff from this country and not because they are paid half of the UK going rate. After all, that would be illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jobs

Yep finding a job is very tough these days, especially so with RegJobs vanishing of late. We need it back guys there's a recession on!

[Anonymous Coward]

A tit-shaped recession

like a W is more plausible, given that it's far easier to print money than suck it out of the economy. When the banks have had their fill, the BoE will likely be unable to claw back its billions of credit quickly enough, and the resulting inflation will cause further economic contraction.

[Destroy All Monsters]

"Worst is over seems" to be the new orthodoxy.

Maybe it's a relative thing; the worst being relatively more over in the UK than in the US.

Still made my day in a sick sort of way.

"America’s Great Depression/ Fifth Edition / Murray N. Rothbard"

By early 1930, people were generally convinced that there was little to worry about. Hoover’s decisive actions on so many fronts—wages, construction, public works, farm supports, etc., indicated to the public that this time swift national planning would turn the tide quickly. Farm prices then seemed to be recovering, and unemployment had not yet reached catastrophic pro-

portions, averaging less than 9 percent of the labor force in 1930. Such leaders as Hoover, William Green, and Charles Schwab issued buoyantly optimistic statements about early recovery, and Hoover was hailed on all sides as a great statesman. At the end of

June, Hoover urged further state and city action to expand public works and thus cure unemployment, and on July 3rd, Congress authorized the expenditure of a giant $915 million public works program, including a Hoover Dam on the Colorado River."

But then...

[gollux]

The worst is past

After September and October 2009 pass without further contraction.

[Inachu]

It will always be bad for techies to find jobs.

Head of IT will alway suse lawfirms to get the lowest pay for the most work and now they are lowering the standards and by face value if you walked into the average IT support team you will see less and less qualified techs who do not know much about the windows operating system and those less qualified will most likely have a heavy no native accent.

Pretty soon People will feel alienated in their own country. The funny part of this is, can you guess it?

It is in the Bible. Props if anyone can find it. But it IS there. Companies and big govt are selling out to the lowest bidder bpassing legal citizenship all for the mighty low pay worker.

[Anonymous Coward]

The CBI and Gordon Brown's amazing talking heads

This wouldn't be the same bunch of goons who told us that everything was rosy, there was nothing to fear and that greedy bank execs were not merely trying to cream off money for their "early retirement", would it?

Since they obvioulsy still have their heads up their own backsides, can we sack the lot of them and replace them with real people, who had real jobs before these bloodsuckers fscked the whole thing up and therefore now a little about how far money really goes when you don't have much of it?

(As against the bankers who seemed to think that lending money to banks all the way round the world, by borrowing it off another bank in the first place, was the best way to run an economy).

[Anonymous Coward]

Agencies

The main problem I have found with IT Agencies is that they hire staff who don't know a thing about IT.

My friend applied for a job a few years back. On his CV he listed applets, javascript, J2EE, SOAP and some other Java technologies. They didn't understand that all of these things meant Java.

I applied for a job and had to explain to the person at the agency that knowing Visual Interdev inside out and backwards meant that, yes, I had more than a passing knowledge of Visual Basic.

Things like this make me dispair. Total number of IT jobs I have managed to get through an agency? Only one. Ever.

My new tactic? Call them up, say "Yes I can send you my CV but can you tell me the company that this is for?"

If they ask why say it's incase you've sent a CV to them through another agency. Then just send your CV directly to the company HR... It's worked for me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you..

stop complaining and get on your bike and cycle to Bangalore, they have plenty of jobs in IT there, and all at a lower salary.

Don't you people realise we are in a competitive international market where skills are important and that we just don't have the right skills in this country at a price, we must release shareholder value, increase margins and cut costs.

I could go on forever, repeating the S&*t oft repeated by senior managers who outsource, but I still won't believe it. Trouble is, I have to say it or I loose my job.

[Duncan Jeffery]

IR35 anyone ?

<My employer has just taken on a load more Big Blue Indian Contractors, presumably because they can't find qualified staff from this country and not because they are paid half of the UK going rate. After all, that would be illegal.>

But I thought with IR35 the argument was that all the IT pros would leave the country - instead it seems like they are staying here to bitch.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh Duncan you are awful.....

IR35? Isn't that the volunteer tax that contractors have to pay if they choose?

IR35 has kept a decent number of legal reps and insurance salesmen in business these last few years, so stop knocking it please. If those guys had to get real jobs then unemployment would be that much higher. And it has cost UK gov thousands of millions of pounds which recouping £9.3m in a 7 year timeframe. Good value for money for those bitch people who moan about the contractors lot without having the balls to give it a try.

Being a contractor is much better than having to play the politics game as a permie anyhow. Having your boss come up with cute phrases to describe your performance in the annual performance review, no thanks. And I don't think I could deal with having only 5 weeks holiday a year either. And Xmas cover when I want to be home with my family? Funny how all my contracts exclude Xmas and other important events.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you dont pay tax 20% less is 20% more :)

IR35 only affects uk workers, my mate big sanjay tells me he does not pay tax here or in India, funny thing is hes working as a contractor on a government project via an Indian based IT company. He also points out that A.N.Other IT company is shit scared as his company does not have the corporate fatcat overhead. In his company the Techies are the most valuable, the managers are the ones who did not make good techies.

So there you have it plenty jobs, wages a bit lower, but if you dont pay tax at 40% NI at 11% then you can work on half UK wages and still enjoy living in the Uk like a king. Only person it affects is that clow Brown and the rest of his twats who would make Excellent Managing Partners in any IT company.

[Anonymous Coward]

peoples of the land, panic not ye!

The worst is over, employment will not rise, the value of your house will fall no further and food prices are stable. We, the prophets of the economy god have sacrificed a virgin to the oracle and confirmed our visions. Ignore ye all our previous false prophecies, for we are sure we are right this time, please give us another chance...

[PPPie]

working abroad

I left the UK 6 years ago, popped back while my mother was ill, then escaped the UK again as quickly as possible. What an awful place. 40% tax, and then with the 60% left you have to pay tax on pretty much everything you spend it on. works out about 80% tax in UK. In the far east I pay 20% tax, which is the highest bracket here, of which I can live very comfortable in a brand new house and it only consumes about 10% of my remaining wage. Leaving the rest saved cash in the bank each month.

Don't fool yourself, UK house prices will collapse to 10% of what they are now. Nothing is made there anymore, it's just a large open prison, escape while you can, everyone can see the prison door closing, except for the people still inside the cell...

[Anonymous Coward]

@DuncanJeffery

Actually, some contractors did leave the UK because of IR35, but obviously not all did!

You're attempt at sarcasm is somewhat invalid.