From InformationWeek reporting on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (via Slashdot), here are the unemployment rates for IT professionals broken out by category:
National average for unemployement across all industries: 5.3%.
Since I know there are a few programmers on this site, I'm betting these numbers aren't all that surprising to you. If you don't like these numbers, perhaps you can do something about it.
The reason why there is high unemployment is because of the business cycle. Whoever is in office can do very little to change that, and close to nothing during four years in office.
The bad economy in 1992 was the result of plans and policies from the late 1980s. The seeds of change that Clinton put into place didn't really take effect until his second term. The long term economic instability that W had to deal with since 2001 were the result of policies from the Clinton administration and longer term trends that stretch back to the Reagan era and before.
If the economy is going to recover by 2008, it will mostly be the result of stuff that is happening today, or policies of the W administration currently in effect. Voting for Kerry, Bush, Nader, LaRouche or Schwarzenegger won't change things very much. We'll still see outsourcing and offshoring, unskilled tech staff from the bubble years still out of work in the tech sector, and we'll still see severe pressures on Social Security and health care.
It's not that choosing a President based on economic issues is pointless. It's important to remember that business and government work on two totally independant timescales. Just like Stewart Brand describes in the Clock of the Long Now.
So choose based on which set of policies you prefer, not on who makes the better sounding promises for economic employment in the tech sector. Whatever anyone promises between now and November, all of them will be ultimately undeliverable.
Re:Jobs and Elections
jjohn on 2004-08-09T13:04:27
You are the recipient of my monthly plug for The Clock of the Long Now!
Thank you for the nod, Zig.
Normally, I'd agree with you. Bush seems to be more culpable than other presidents for the regression in jobs, particularly in the tech market.
- Rather than discourage or stay neutral, Bush has given tax credits for companies offshoring jobs
- His Commerce Secretary Don Evans suggested that those who have lost jobs to offshoring "stop whining"
- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce gives advice to companies on the many benefits of offshoring
Whether the offshoring of tech jobs is part of a larger trend is, to me, irrelvant. What irritates me is President Bush's eager participation in the deportation of jobs and his studied refusal to encourage their domestic replacement. I suggest also that Bush's anemic prosecution of corporate malfeasance (despite NY all-out effort to bag Martha Stewart [which wasn't a federal case at all]) has greatly cooled the development of new companies by showing investors that the government thinks steal their money is OK.
So, as James Hetfield might say, "Bush...BAD!"
Re:Jobs and Elections
ziggy on 2004-08-09T14:02:54
I respect your position, but I'm not going to get involved in the offshoring debate (again). It's an easy issue to take a shallow sound-bite of a position that is easy to express and fundementally wrong. I am not accusing you of being simple-minded here, but I've heard a lot of people equate no jobs at home == jobs going to India == very bad policy. And that bothers me.But offshoring is also about sending jobs to Ireland, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. Most detractors conveniently forget this part of the discussion when they oversimplify the issue into jingoistic sound-bites. And with IT, it's easy to forget that the US does not have a lock on smart people. By employing people all over the world, companies have a chance at increasing the number of brilliant programmers they can hire. And getting a critical mass of great hackers is a stronger predictor of future success than hiring-by-body-count.
I won't argue whether Bush has accelerated the trend; his policies surely have helped. But what we can't know is how big the outsourcing/offshoring trend would be without his policies. Nor can we accurately assess how many job losses are directly due to stupid hiring practices in the boom -- paying $100K and more for effectively unskilled college dropouts. Many of those jobs are easy to send to a low-wage environment, but aren't truly necessary in the first place. For example, why complain when a single Bricolage installation replaces a room full of "HTML Programmers" and offers a trouble-free, predictable workflow? Jobs are lost (or maybe sent offshore in the interim), but were they really necessary in the first place?
Re:Jobs and Elections
pudge on 2004-08-26T22:16:21
Rather than discourage or stay neutral, Bush has given tax credits for companies offshoring jobs
This is false. Those tax credits do exist, but they existed before Bush took office. Also, offshoring is a very small problem, accounting for 2.5% of major layoffs in 1Q 2004.
And what would Kerry's plan do? It would tax foreign income right away, instead of allowing it to be deferred. Kerry would also LOWER the corporate tax rate, by 1.75 percent, and they would keep the tax credit that you're bemoaning, that Bush had nothing to do with. And there is no evidence to suggest that this would decrease offshoring at all, although -- because they could not indefinitely defer paying taxes on the income -- it would probably increase revenues in some cases.
His Commerce Secretary Don Evans suggested that those who have lost jobs to offshoring "stop whining"
That's irrespective of policy, though I admit it was an assholian thing to say.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce gives advice to companies on the many benefits of offshoring
So? You assume offshoring is a bad thing. If it is so bad, why did Kerry vote for both NAFTA and GATT, which have done more to contribute to offshoring than anything Bush has ever done? Most economists agree that offshoring in the medium term will benefit us, and that it is necessary for us to continue to succeed in the global economy.
What irritates me is President Bush's eager participation in the deportation of jobs and his studied refusal to encourage their domestic replacement.
What irritates me is that this isn't actually the case (at least, no moreso than it is with Kerry).
I suggest also that Bush's anemic prosecution of corporate malfeasance... has greatly cooled the development of new companies by showing investors that the government thinks steal their money is OK.
Huh? How do you figure that? Who hasn't been prosecuted that you'd like to see prosecuted? Yes, in the last year or so indictments have decreased, but this is most likely primarily because of the new regulations and increased enforcement resulting from Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, and the rest.
You don't give Bush ANY credit for that?
btilly on 2004-08-09T05:04:07
At least one of your job offers related indirectly to business done to help re-defeat Bush. If it weren't for Bush, that wouldn't have been such a big issue, and that employer might not have been in a position to hire you.
This is not credit of the kind that Bush wants, but still it is credit for Bush.:-)
