IT and the greater depression
The hard economic times that we are coming into, that may be called “The Greater Depression” by some, will affect many industries, but I thought I would comment on my thoughts regarding IT in such an environment.
Already the steel industry world wide has cut production by 1/3, and a secondary / tertiary industry such as IT will feel the brunt of global slow downs more. We can only service that which there is business for!
I would see that some of the following could take place:
- Job losses as demand lowers, and borrowing slows
- Price drops in general services, as jobs fall, and deflation takes place
- Falling wages because of said deflation
- More people will produce lower quality, cheap work for desperate money
- Higher demands on employees
Thankfully with no IT union there should be no strikes or price fixing which will only make matters worse. The rewards will be with those who can hold down IT work during the next five years, since they will have a much better wages in the following boom for the experience for the good looking resume.
The sectors that will continue work are most likely to be:
- Government work, since it will be least likely to cut with socialists in federally and in the states
- High quality work that is in demand and has the least skills in, such as rapid deployment and specialist such as medical / mining, and true n-tier, OO programming
- Low quality, cheap work
Finding quality IT providers may become more difficult. The things to look out for will be years in the industry, and good testimonials from happy customers. Good businesses may go under as they are undercut, making it harder again.
Keeping a job in IT will be very hard. Jobs will drop with no industry to support, so several things will be needed. For the cheap work, it will be like the last depression, where the first in will get the job, so promptness will be the key. For higher skilled work, experience, quality references and then qualifications will be what scores the work.