A Bad Time to Be A Professional

[cma]

    Yikes! These numbers are scary. A 10% decline in
    engineering occupations in just 8 months?

The 10% decline was in "Engineering and architecture occupations," it would be nice if the two were separated out. We had a massive housing bubble and construction boom. It popped. In light of that it is hardly surprising that Architects had a major fall off.

[myth_drannon]

"‘Engineering and architecture occupations’ (actually the BLS reverses the order) is roughly 67% engineers, about 10% architects, surveyors and the like, with the remainder engineering and mapping technicians"

So the majority of 10% decline are engineers.

[steveplace]

Also separate engineers. Civil and construction engineers were poleaxed since the bust.

[tokenadult]

The 10% decline was in "Engineering and architecture occupations," it would be nice if the two were separated out.

Good catch, and your comment on the housing bubble seems apropos.

[eguanlao]

I agree. It would be nice if the two were separated.

[tptacek]

All the evidence available to me suggests that, however bad things may look for long-term employment in IT and CS, the market for freelance talent is strong --- enough so that we've been left wondering for the past 6 months if our business is countercyclical.

[pmjordan]

I haven't been freelance for long enough to have a good grip on what demand is like normally, but I certainly haven't had a shortage of work coming my way recently. It seems to me that the amount of projects hasn't dropped much, but many companies who might have hired someone permanently to implement them previously are now taking on external contractors instead. The financial risk is, after all, easier to control.

[zackattack]

The freelance talent market is strong, really?

You have any friends looking for a LAMP hacker?

[YuriNiyazov]

I know that personal experience is anecdotal, but I have a full-time job and a wide choice of side gigs that I can pick up. I don't even say this to gloat, it just seems like the news outlets are blowing it out of proportion (as always)

[patio11]

What you said.

My little slice of the Japanese countryside is heavily invested in manufacturing. There are 6,000 Brazilian factory workers in my town. About 5,000 of them are out of work right now, and many have taken a government offer where they'll pay for your plane ticket if you leave the country and promise to not come back.

Meanwhile I'm in an air-conditioned office, just got a positive performance evaluation, will receive my bonus on time this summer, and have job security that the Pope would envy.

We don't even know how good we have it some days.

[enjo]

Yet we had tremendous trouble hiring a solid developer (Denver/Boulder) a month and a half ago. We had a bunch of applications from the barely qualifieds, but it seems that those with a strong skill-set are still in demand.

Hell, I still get 2 or 3 queries a week from headhunters, and I'm not actively looking.

[pierrefar]

I want my seasonal variation.