2 Questions...

[Azat]

I don't think these monkeys are stupid enough to get into management. So I am now thinking of becoming their manager so I can spanks the monkeys.

 

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(for those of you who got the joke. Shame on you perverts. )

[gamavor]

Azat check out this (scroll down). There are bunch of software and IT companies you might be interested in.

 

"US SOFTWARE FIRM OPENS BRANCH IN ARMENIA

 

September 20, 2000

 

Armenia's burgeoning software industry got a major boost on Wednesday with the official opening of yet another subsidiary of an American high-tech company.

 

Senior executives from Epygi Labs of the United States inaugurated their new branch in the Armenian city of Ashtarak in the presence of President Robert Kocharian. The company plans to invest $20 million in the subsidiary within the next five years to produce computer software, laser and fibro-optic equipment and semi-conductors.

 

Its production operations will initially focus on computer programming. Epygi Labs chief executive Sam Simonian, an American citizen of Armenian descent, said the Ashtarak branch will employ 120 programmers by the end of this year will expand its staff by 50 percent annually.

 

As part of its strategy of promoting development of information technologies in Armenia, the company will also open an Internet "TechnoPark" in Yerevan, which will be equipped with 1000 personal computers available for public use free of charge.

 

At least 12 American and several European software firms already operate in Armenia, drawing on the country's skilled but affordable workforce."

 

http://www.armeniadiaspora.com/home/index.html

 

[Stormig]

http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/...ml?nas=PM-85055

 

 

 

Study: IT worker unemployment at 'unprecedented' levels

 

About 150,000 IT positions were lost in 2001 and 2002

 

Story by Patrick Thibodeau

 

SEPTEMBER 17, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - DALLAS -- Unemployment for IT workers reached 6% this year, an "unprecedented" level for a profession that was once a sure path to a well-paying job, according to a new study that also found that foreign-born workers now account for a fifth of all IT employees in the U.S. The report also found that the percentage of laid-off foreign-born IT workers is slightly higher than for U.S.-born workers.

The study, which was presented at a congressional forum today by the Washington-based nonprofit group Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST), affirms what IT managers have seen in response to help-wanted ads. "I'm sure the number is 6% or higher," said Michael Russo, a data center manager at Wyeth, a Madison, N.J.-based pharmaceuticals giant.

 

A recent third-shift job in the company's operational data center drew 168 applicants. "There are a lot of people who are out of work," Russo said.

 

Randy Rosenthal, manager of computer operations at Southwest Securities Group Inc. in Dallas, has seen the same trend: highly qualified people with multiple degrees applying for jobs IT managers once had trouble filling. "That tells me that 6% has hit the IT area pretty hard," he said.

 

About 150,000 IT positions were lost in 2001 and 2002, about two-thirds of them in programming, the report said.

 

Two years ago, Phoenix-based water and electric utility Salt River Project had an open position for an operations analyst and received about 15 applications; last year, it posted a similar position and had 50 applicants. This year the 800,000-customer utility has a hiring freeze, said operations manager Dewayne Nelsen.

 

There was a sense of grim resignation about the latest report among some IT managers at a conference held here by AFCOM, an Orange, Calif.-based data center managers user group.

 

Several IT managers, some requesting that their names not be used, told of data center consolidations that led to layoffs or offshore plans. For the future, automation improvements and the development of "self-healing" applications will also hurt some IT career paths. The career advice from one IT manager was to avoid the technical aspects of the profession and focus more on IT management training.

 

IT unemployment rates were as low as 1.2% in 1997, shooting up to 4.3% in 2002.

 

But the overall number of IT jobs has seen remarkable growth, tripling in the past 20 years, according to the CPST, which conducts labor force and educational research for a range of scientific organizations and companies. The IT labor force grew from 719,000 jobs in 1983 to 2.5 million at its peak in 2000.

 

With the growth of IT came an increasing reliance upon foreign workers. This increase was facilitated by legislation expanding the use of H-1B visas, which allow skilled foreign workers to take jobs in the U.S. for up to six years. A cap of 195,000 on the number of visas that can be issued has been in place for each of the past three years, but the cap will drop to 65,000 on Oct. 1. L-1 visas, which allow companies to transfer foreign employees into the U.S., have tripled in use.

 

The report, sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York and the United Engineering Foundation, an umbrella organization for engineering groups, draws no firm conclusion on the offshore outsourcing trend. But it recognizes predictions made by analyst firms, including Gartner Inc., which in July estimated that 10% of all U.S. professional jobs in IT services companies would be transferred overseas, along with 5% of IT positions in other businesses.

 

Long term, the report says more research is needed on the effects of offshore outsourcing and the workforce issues raised by it: "Can the U.S. continue to be a prime market for the rest of the world if it is a stronghold for neither manufacturing nor technical services?" the report asks. "What are the long-run implications of these trends for American standards of living?"

 

The CPST report concludes that while the job market for IT professionals has weakened, it remains sizable.

 

"For the near run, normal turnover alone will generate opportunities for people who are determined to work in the field," the report said. "The long-run outlook is more problematic. The United States does not lack, either now or in the foreseeable future, sufficient numbers of capable people who would like to work in IT. But those people may not be willing to conclude that long-run demands for their services will be good enough to support IT as a sensible career choice."

[Azat]

Are Tech Jobs In America's Future?

By Jeff Dorsch, Industry Editor, Technology Editorial Team

 

Ross Perot was wrong about NAFTA. The only thing that sucks about the free-trade pact is the heavy truck traffic it has fostered on Interstate 35. Free trade, the global economy, and their effects on American jobs are issues reaching a flashpoint in a new area, information technology (IT) services.The move toward exporting "back-office" jobs -- such as routine paperwork and customer service -- to countries such as India has been around for a long time. Now the trend is to outsource jobs calling for advanced technical skills such as programming, computer hardware and software customer support, and even semiconductor design.

 

"Offshore" software development, meaning custom-made software created outside the US, is becoming less the exclusive province of the big Indian IT services firms, such as Infosys and Wipro, and more an area for nascent programming centers in China, Russia, and Eastern European countries.Many economists have long argued that the loss of American jobs in industrial manufacturing because of NAFTA and other free-trade treaties would be more than made up in the growth of higher-paying, professional services jobs, including those in IT services, and US government figures seem to bear that out.Professional engineering organizations in the US have asserted that US companies are "giving away" too many technical jobs to foreign-born engineers who will work for less money than their American peers would accept. Controversy over the US government's H-1B visas, which US companies can get for non-citizen engineers by certifying that they can't find enough qualified American citizens for vacant positions, peaked during the dot-com era, then faded in the technology bust of 2001-02 as everybody scrambled for jobs.

 

The New York Times, however, provided a wake-up call with a July 22 article quoting IBM executives who, during a conference call, discussed how the technology giant might need to shift more jobs to India and other countries in the near future to remain competitive. More importantly, the article detailed how such a move would require the company to create senior management positions overseas -- white-collar jobs that might have gone to Americans. Right now IBM already employs more people outside the US, about 180,000, than it does in the States, 135,000.

 

Forrester Research estimates the US computer industry will transfer overseas 450,000 jobs in the next 12 years, representing 8% of the jobs in the domestic industry, the Times reported.

 

Earlier this year Giga Information Group predicted IT outsourcing to India from the US would grow by 25% in 2003. The biggest area of growth would be in offshore application management, a field in which contractors oversee the installation and maintenance of software automating business processes such as packages from SAP and Oracle, according to Giga.

 

The second largest growth area would be in application management outsourced to "near-shore" IT services companies in Canada and Latin America, Giga said.India, with its massive cadre of English-speaking technology professionals holding degrees from the seven Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses and other universities, is home to IT services companies that have enjoyed breathtaking growth until the past year or so. While their growth curves look less like hockey sticks and more like cricket bats these days, smaller companies such as Patni Computer Systems and ITC Infotech India are drawing increasing amounts of US business, and, conversely, many US companies are setting up their own software development centers in India or acquiring existing Indian companies.The debate is sure to continue for years to come: Is the US "giving away" its best technology jobs to other countries, or will growth of the global economy create enough high-tech employment for all developed countries to thrive?

[Sip]

Interesting ... Will your job move to India?

 

I didn't see house painter on the list so Azat your backup plan is still safe.