Anyone feel the IT field is growing?

[kyrax12]

Any IT workers or specialist feel that the IT career field is growing and that there are currently still a lot of job available even in this Economy?

Reason that I am thinking about this is because I don't know whether to double major or focus onto a single field.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Any IT workers or specialist feel that the IT career field is growing and that there are currently still a lot of job available even in this Economy?

Snark, chortle, gufaw! There's no shortage of jobs at $8.50/hr.

 

[kyrax12]

Snark, chortle, gufaw! There's no shortage of jobs at $8.50/hr.

What jobs are you talking about exactly? :\

 

[pontifex]

Yeah, tons of jobs out there for $10-11 an hour. All other jobs are being consolidated into 1 even fairly entry level jobs and they require insane experience. I see desktop support jobs where they want a person who knows desktop stuff, but also can admin servers, manage databases, program, fluent in web design, and needs networking support. Plus they want someone with a Bachelor's degree or like 15 years experience in all of it.

oh, and the pay is like 35k a year.

 

[shortylickens]

Yeah, in Korea, or India.
More and more when need help with something thats where it usually originates.

 

[Arkitech]

Yeah, tons of jobs out there for $10-11 an hour. All other jobs are being consolidated into 1 even fairly entry level jobs and they require insane experience. I see desktop support jobs where they want a person who knows desktop stuff, but also can admin servers, manage databases, program, fluent in web design, and needs networking support. Plus they want someone with a Bachelor's degree or like 15 years experience in all of it.

oh, and the pay is like 35k a year.

Stuff like that is freaking me out. I'm working at a PC repair shop making about 17 an hour (which is a tremendous drop from my previous year's salary of 76k) and its driving me crazy. I'm so busy most days I work without a lunch or even a 15 minute break and still can't keep up with the work. Factor in the stress of working with the owner who's driving me berserk and you have a recipe for Falling Down part 2.

I'm really hoping I can get out of this job into something that pays better, I don't mind working like a slave I just don't want to get paid like one.

 

[ultimatebob]

Yeah, in Korea, or India.
More and more when need help with something thats where it usually originates.

Don't forget Brazil and China... there are plenty of cheap technology workers there as well.

Of course, you should move to China or Taiwan if you want a technology manufacturing job. Practically everything with a circuit board is built there at this point.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Personally, I'd avoid IT if I had to start over again. It is just too hard to tell where the field is headed in terms of headcount here in the US. There will always be a need for deskside support, but it seems most of the higher-end positions will either be 1) Outsourced 2) Employed by service providers 3) Employed by consulting firms.

I've seen a lot of relatively high paying IT jobs in my area recently, but I wonder how much of that is due to companies cutting too much in the first place rather than an expansion of the field.

 

[ultimatebob]

Personally, I'd avoid IT if I had to start over again. It is just too hard to tell where the field is headed in terms of headcount here in the US. There will always be a need for deskside support, but it seems most of the higher-end positions will either be 1) Outsourced 2) Employed by service providers 3) Employed by consulting firms.

I've seen a lot of relatively high paying IT jobs in my area recently, but I wonder how much of that is due to companies cutting too much in the first place rather than an expansion of the field.

Keep in mind that when a company outsources their IT to another company, that company usually employees foreign outsourced first/second level support and development positions to cut costs. It's a double whammy for US corporate IT... either your company is outsourcing your job directly, or they're hiring someone to do it for them.

 

[TXHokie]

Saw my company's IT Security team tripled in size in past 2.5 years. It's the only part of IT I would say is less likely to be outsourced or sent offshore and tend to be higher pay than sysadmins. It's also can definitely be grueling work tho.

 

[ric1287]

Personally, I'd avoid IT if I had to start over again. It is just too hard to tell where the field is headed in terms of headcount here in the US. There will always be a need for deskside support, but it seems most of the higher-end positions will either be 1) Outsourced 2) Employed by service providers 3) Employed by consulting firms.

I've seen a lot of relatively high paying IT jobs in my area recently, but I wonder how much of that is due to companies cutting too much in the first place rather than an expansion of the field.

So get a job with the consulting companies. Someone has to work, you can't move everything to india.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

So get a job with the consulting companies. Someone has to work, you can't move everything to india.

Yeah, but how many of us want to be moving to a new location every six months?

 

[kyrax12]

Saw my company's IT Security team tripled in size in past 2.5 years. It's the only part of IT I would say is less likely to be outsourced or sent offshore and tend to be higher pay than sysadmins. It's also can definitely be grueling work tho.

Why would you think the work is grueling though?

 

[holden j caufield]

security field is growing around here, virtualization seems to have grown a lot in the last few years and is the future. If you know these two I'd think you'd be in decent demand.

 

[rasczak]

security field is growing around here, virtualization seems to have grown a lot in the last few years and is the future. If you know these two I'd think you'd be in decent demand.

here as well.

 

[holden j caufield]

and I'd think knowing your cisco and voip has got to be a big plus also. Forensic stuff, you can charge a sht ton if you know your crap, probably make a really good side income consulting doing this.

 

[TXHokie]

Why would you think the work is grueling though?

Very technically oriented and requires lots of different skills with different technologies not to mention people skills. Requires constant keeping up to date since it's such a fast moving field - you get to see pretty quick who stands out. Working a major incident containment can easily put in 60+ hours week for a couple weeks poring thru massive amount of data. Then there's the reporting and flaky enterprise tools. And seriously we're like the cops - IT people don't want to deal with us because we add to their workload to be in compliance and when we come knocking, it's not good. There's also the frustrating factor that the bad guys are winning and we can't hack back. There may be other lesser strenuous aspect of security out there but this is more what I see.

 

[ric1287]

Yeah, but how many of us want to be moving to a new location every six months?

Huh? Work for a consulting firm that does basically mercenary work. Thats what I want to do, projects for a couple weeks and on to the next client.

 

[Mide]

The IT field sucks. Depending on what company you apply to you can be offered anything from $10/hr to 150K. But overall it blows.