Job market for techies to get healthier?

If the stimulus plan does indeed generate IT jobs, I’m afraid that ‘they’ will find a way of sending the majority of them to India.

LOL!

When are people in this country going to wake up. This is our tax money folks. We are paying for this. Our kids will be paying for this. On top of that, we are paying into the health care system. If this money goes to create even one job in India, then maybe Obama should resign.

http://www.straightchatter.blogspot.com/

Maybe you were unconsciously thinking of Patsy Cline, the legendary country singer (same spelling of Cline!). “Crr-AY-zee for lovin’ you….”

Oops, didn’t see that Ms. Cline is actually Mr. Cline. Sorry about that.

Ms. Cline may have been factual about the 30 people her company hired and the 100+ people she hopes to see hired thanks to the stimulus package, but she didn’t say who those people were. I’m guessing they’re Hindus. Why? Because if you go to nextgen.com, as I did, and look at their webinar schedule, you’ll see two webinar titles: “CHC and Indian Health – Grants Now Available” and “Indian Health Center: Opportunities From the Economic Stimulus Bill”. If I didn’t know any better, NextGen appears to be saying one thing is public and doing something else behind closed doors. It makes me wonder about the people that other companies say they’ll hire with no experience and train. How much you want to bet those people won’t be Americans? Not whining here, just giving an opinion.

What’s business intelligence and data mining? I’ve never heard of those.

Whether there are jobs today is not the whole question. The problem is that theindustry is noy alive and well in the United States. Young people are not going to enter an industry that does not pay and that is being outsourced. If you are a technologist, ask yourself this question :
“Will I want my child to persue a career in technology?”.

http://straightchatter.blogspot.com/

Ben, let me ask *you*: Are you saying Pat Cline (president of NextGen) is a liar and the tens of thousands of jobs on Dice.com are not real jobs? It’s easy to bitch about India but are there truly no opportunities for tech professionals in the U.S.? I find that very hard to believe.

Anonymous — How do you know the IT money is going to end up in India? Do you have evidence of that, or are you simply assuming?

A fundamental component of technology is change. Technology seeks to discover new solutions to problems as they become solvable. Information technology seeks to solve those problems related to the acquisition, storage, management and distribution of information resources. As our needs, related to Information change, our technological tools change to meet those needs.

In most industries, there are those that design, build and maintain. IT is no different. If I recall, primary initiatives of the stimulus package are education, health care and energy. Each of these areas are in need of new technologies that improve the acquisition, storage, management and distribution components of their respective fields.

If the Obama administration is going to fund, via this stimulus package, renewed efforts in the mentioned fields, it is critical that this funding be managed properly and responsibly so that American workers gain the lion’s share of the monies. It will be the Obama administration’s responsibility to provide the management and oversight to insure this happens.

Sadly, the government track record for managing money is not usually very impressive or beneficial to Americans. Corruption, bid rigging, kick backs, pork projects and a long list of other examples of thievery and abuse cloud our governments past in managing such resources.

Yet, every day is a new day with new opportunities to do the right thing. We can expect a portion of this money to be stolen from the American people but we should expect and even demand that the lion’s share go to those it is professed to help.

In the IT field, there are numerous industry trade shows and organizations. I would suggest and hope that those organizations are taking careful observations of every stimulus dollar – where it goes, what it goes for and who it goes to. If the money is to go to us, then we, as an industry should decide where it ends up. If we could develop a collective IT industry plan as to how funding should be managed, maybe the Obama administration would take notice and accept our leadership.

If we allow CEO’s and other execs to grab the money I expect much of it will go into their own pockets. We have to accept that most of our executive managers are nothing more than politicians, with a real job. Grassroots workers can make better and more equitable decisions regarding financial distribution.

So, to finalize, there is money available to improve the quality of life for all Americans. The areas of education, health care and energy have been specifically chosen as places our leadership wants to focus on. Technology, which includes Information Technology stands ready to take on these new challenges with innovation and a willingness to get to work. We only ask that the money be managed well, distributed fairly and targeted on projects that are well defined, well planned and highly visible to those of us in the industry that are expected to get it done. We want to see the last dollar spent go in the pocket of we that gave it in the first place and see a good result as an outcome.

Let’s get real here! My country has to stop giving, giving and giving with getting nothing in return. This is my tax money. My tax money should not be used to generate jobs in India. If India wants jobs, perhaps the Indian government should do something to stimulate their economy by taxing their workers 20, 30 and 40%. For straight talk read my blog:

http://straightchatter.blogspot.com/

Let me ask you something? If you are a technologist in the U.S. getting paid 100k, how can you possibly compete with somebody get paid 20k in India. Perhaps, if we lower our living standards. Maybe, I can stop paying taxes, stop financing social security for our seniors, stop financing the war, stop financing the bailout of firms that continue to outsource jobs. Better yet, maybe I should become a journalist and pretend I know about an industry that I truly know nothing about.

Peter, nobody said you are whining. But some people are whining, and it doesn’t help them. There is a BIG difference between discussing an issue intelligently and saying, “The world sucks, I’m just going to cry about it without having to change my own behavior or attitude at all.” It’s patently not true that “we have outsourced everything” — but it probably is true that, if you can’t prove why you’re worth more than some indian guy, then maybe you’re in the wrong business. And P.S., Indian costs are catching up with U.S. costs, so maybe at some point it will be a truly level playing field. One can hope!

Every time people bring up an issue that is affecting their life and indirectly the lives of others, some people call it whining. If we do not bring up these issues, how do we expect to resolve them. I for one have no regrets about leaving the tech industry that I’ve been in for 20 years. I’ll start a route delivering potato chips, coach my son’s baseball team and lead a normal life. The real question is not about whining or about my job or my life; it’s about this country becoming dumber and dumber by the minute. We have outsourced everything. Technology is in it’s infancy and if we outsource this, we are outsourcing the very guts of the future economic growth in this country. Believe me, nobody is whining here!

Pat, I would refer you to Jeff from Baltimore MD, below. Not all tech jobs go to India. (Too many do — but not all.) Time to quit whining and figure out your next step.

I was simply agreeing with those who pointed out that the jobs created by the stimulus package will be outsourced to India and the Philippines, and that the “Ask Annie” March 27th article didn’t reflect the realities of that particular marketplace. But I can do is ask where I might find the training to least find a part-time position even if the pay is low. If I can’t, then it’s career change time.

As an IT professional soon I will be able to underbid overseas competitors because I and everyone else is becoming poorer in this country. Look at the tent cities on the news. The way to get the government to pay attention is to vote out incumbents every year. I try to buy American and local products only. If its made overseas then I do without or buy a used version to hurt the multinationals. If we don’t do this it will keep getting worse

What we are seeing today is the result of sending all jobs overseas. Companies want to save money. They do not want to
pay the American wage, but they want the American consumer. As you can see the boo hand in hand. Today with less and less Americans with jobs, there is less purchasing power. The companies are biting the hand that feeds the. Outsourcing is a big issue that is not on everybody’s radar as of yet. I would like to make this issue well known. Please write your congressmen and Senator. I have a blog where you can post you comments and ideas on how to get media attention on this important subject.

http://outsourcingtheusa.blogspot.com

I am an Senior Programmer and have yet to meet a programmer from India that can keep up with me. Most of the time they are in their cube on the phone talking to someone back in Mumbai on how to do something. They rarely take the initiative to do something, they only do what they are told to do and it drives me crazy. Some of the best foreign programmers I worked with are American, Russian, English and German. Yes, there have been exceptions but more often then not I am not impressed and agree with Downtownplaya. We need to educate our citizens instead of taking on H1B’s or outsourcing. I get so sick of trying to explain the business rules or workflow to Indians I end up programming it myself.

I think Americans should be able to keep their old jobs. Let foreign workers be the ones to find and train for something new. Why are we letting our representatives in congress do this to us. Free trade does not mean that we are trading our goods and services for goods and services from foreign countries. It means American companies are allowed to move to foreign countries, use cheap labor to make products and services, and sell it back to us. They simple do not want to compete on a level playing field. If we don’t stop this unfair trading the middle class in America will cease to exist.

If Ugandans spoke good english and understood the mechanics of the airline industry, believe me, expedia would be there in a second. Point being you can’t fight the supply and demand.

I think outsourcing is a reality and people need to be better educated/empowered starting in high school in order to make sound judgments on career decisions. Only then would supply shrink to meet demand.

As an engineer who graduated from a top school in New York, I was disappointed at the lack of prospects in the region. All of the major corporations had been outsourced to California and Texas, but the forces of supply and demand soon made me make the move. Other classmates stuck around by making a transition to Wall Street. But demand destruction is doing its wonders in that realm and causing some of them to find work of greater physical value.

I keep hearing that IT professionals in the U.S. are expensive. Unfortunately, we have many partners: Federal, state and local governments as well as social security. Maybe., I would not have to pay the taxes I do if I didn’t have to bail out companies that made bad decisions. Now it the same companies that go bailed out that continue to outsource jobs on my and my childresn’s dime.

I am also an IT person, and yes there will be more IT jobs in General, I have worked around the world and know that we will eventually move from a Manufacturing country to a technology country. As for off shoring, I have been with IBM as they have shipped jobs to Hungary and Africa and India and they will continue to do it. We should stop H1 visa because American workings in IT are becoming rare and we can not let these jobs since they are the 21st century jobs slip away

Been there, done that. Good luck.
There are three major parts to chnaging the business processes of healthcare….people, processes, and technology. Simply pouring money into technology for changing healthcare will not get it done. Healthcare needs a lot more that technology changes, including primarily financial restructuring. You have not seen greed until you sit in on the executive meetings of large healthcare organizations. Been there, seen that.

Only the lower end IT jobs, and smaller projects, will go to India and the Philipines like they do now. Jobs like mine, data warehouse architect and senior dba, as well as business intelligence, data mining, and business analysts will surely stay here. There is more to IT than just coding. Building quality software requires close interaction and deep understanding of the business and I can tell you India is not there yet.

I work for a health insurer as part of the privatized arm of CMS (Medicare). We have outsourced some of our coding but most of our IT assets are right here, where they need to be. Companies that try to outsource everything almost always fail. Other than some higher disenrollments, this industry is very recession proof; we continue to hire and build and streamline our business even in IT.

To stay valuable (aka keep your job) in this day and age you need to be flexible. Show interest that you want to learn new things and move your career forward and sideways. The people in IT that aren’t making it either work for failing industries or aren’t proving to their employers that they can be the guy that meets their needs.

The first step to keeping your IT job is to step up.

I think the Goverment should FINE any American company that outsources it’s development.

Also, H1 fraud is growing, ghost employees, Indian companies banning Chinese and US Citizens from working on projects. This has to end NOW!

Well, since I am a recently unemployed software developer with 12+ years of experience I guess I can chime in. Will it create more IT jobs? Sure. How many? who knows? Permanent jobs? Most likely not. Jobs for U.S. citizens (American programmers) out of this? I would guess maybe 30%, if you add in the project managers, maybe 40% (and that is being very optimistic). Sure their might be wording in the latest stimulus saying they can’t hire h1b’s or outsource the work, but trust me, it will happen. They always word the legislation with plenty of loopholes. Can’t bring in an h1b worker to replace an American worker? Fine, we’ll just say it is a brand new position. If that doesn’t work, we’ll bring in someone on L1 (if your one of the bigger body shops). Or explain it all away by saying you are sub-contracting the work to another company. All the while, ship as much to Hyderabad and Mumbai as possible.

Please understand that I am not whining about the state of IT in America, I am just stating the obvious. And it is nothing new, it’s been happening well before the .com bust. That is the “pat on the back” anyone who goes into IT gets, you get to compete with the world for the lowest wages possible.

I am just waiting for all the lobbying groups and politicians to do their annual dog and pony show after April 1st (when the next round for h1b’s are filled) to make their pitch to increase the cap again. Maybe Bill Gates will make another trip to D.C. to make his pitch. Most likely they will all tone it down a bit this year (don’t want to risk a backlash you know), so they might just sit it out until next year.

I will certainly be looking for some of these contract jobs once they hit. Hopefully a few will trickle down to the states (United States that this:-).

I’m a small business entrepreneur and have built Medical Practice Management Software . I strongly believe that each medical provider/institution shall have control over its records. Today, there are no standards, to carry the digital records from one provider to another. We, the industry shall provide a way to transfer the digital records from one system to another. These records shall be secured and locked using a key that only the patient and the provider know.

The objective of any computerized system, is to provide a solution for more effectiveness and lower the operation cost for both the medical providers and insurance companies.

Electronic medical records and electronic billing will save significant amount of time for the providers and institutions and therefore lower the costs.

I’ve actually looked into some of the companies that specialize in this and everyone of them outsourced development jobs overseas.

So other than the people manually entering the records into the system I don’t forsee any increase large increase in jobs dometically.

Offshore software developers and IT professionals are still a MUCH cheaper alternative than domestic ones and so long at that continues and the basic principle of business is keep costs low to maxmize profit I don’t see this changing anytime soon.

IT in America is a joke! If any IT jobs come out of this, you can bet they will go to India.

I have been working, (at least trying) in IT for 12 years. It’s time to open a pizza place because IT in America is dead thanks to offshoring. I just hope Americans have money to by pizzas from me!!

You’d better speak Hindi if you want any of these new IT jobs!

So far *every* has disagreed with your premise. Maybe you should consider re-writing the article to be more in alignment with today’s market realities.

think it’s time to tell your congress that any company that ships jobs overseas should not be allowed to participate in the stimulus bill. Obviously companies like IBM which send thousands of jobs overseas AND has the cash to think about buying SUN, does not need tax payer money.

As an IT consultant that worked in the medical field for years I foresee great opportunities based on the stimulus plan. Electronic Content Management software in the medical field has always had a great ROI, however there is a large intial cost that most hosptials can not met. As the stimulus funds are made available I believe many new consulting positions will become available. Most of these software packages do not require extensive conventinal IT support and will not create jobs at the hospitals and clinics to support them, however they will create positions with resellers and vendors.

I am currently an unemployed IT consultant. My last contract was at a health care company and my contract wasn’t extended last November because they started offshoring the contract positions. So I don’t expect to see many new jobs here in the U.S.

Will definitely create some work. As someone in this field, the jobs that involve setting up the applications and working directly with the users, will have to be here. Most implementation work can’t be outsourced overseas. The comment about the healthcare experience not being important was off base. Companies WILL hire and train IT workers without healthcare experience, but they’d much prefer those that have it, and will pay better money for those that do. Real question is: with a number of companies cutting these types of people recently, how many NEW people will get hired, vs. those laid off just getting back to work?

I’ve been saying this for years that we are in essence outsourcing the lifeline of our country. Technology is everywhere and there is so much more to be done. The sad thing is when jobs are outsourced with little or no savings to the company. The managers normally get promoted for taking a plan to outsource and putting it into action.

Read my blog for more info: http://www.outsourcingtheusa.blogspot.com

One issue I have with IT jobs in general is that employers treat the IT employees like car parts. Swapping us around at will a fella can’t put down any roots. I’ve worked for a whopping 20 companies in since 1979. Not that I’m a loser, although my ex wife would differ, but that they keep going out of business or getting bought out. There are so so many people in IT with the same credentials that its really hard to hang on to the constant ebb and flow of these IT businesses. A review of companies that are posting jobs show a lot of little ones. Reminds me of the days when computer stores were on every corner till Mr. Dell flipped it all on it shoulder.

I have a comment.
Buy stock in outsourcing companies.

I am an early stage technology company that has won a DELL TOP 10 INNOVATOR AWARD. Our business model is a platform for the US home repair and remodeling industry that connects contractors to subcontractors to homeowners and suppliers. All development has been done in the US. We are a pure By America, For American Labors for American Business. http://www.MyOnlineToolbox.com obtained early stage financing to bring the product to market and then the credit crisis appeared. My question is, rather than just throw money at huge companies that in turn have been burning more money with no end in sight, how about support the very small entreprenurial companies who are trying to benefit just the US, including techies? It has been impossible to get grants through the traditional government channels to support the 50,000 goal, but we are ready to contribute.

It will add lots of jobs, but most of them will be in India. Just look at the news yesterday that IBM laid off 5000-6000 US technology workers because they are moving the jobs to India. IBM is one of the big firms trying to get federal money for this project. I bet Congress had no idea the money would support new jobs in India.

How that this question be asked during a time corporate America is virtually attacking IT employment? Yesterday IBM announced it was firing thousands of Americans simply to move those jobs to Inda. Why is IBM doing this, are they losing money? , no they made $4.2 Billion last quarter – its greed. In this mornings Wal Steet Journal, page 3 there was an article suggesting ‘many economists’ are saying we should INCREASE the number of Foreign H1-B visa holders allowed into the US(mostly programmers). This is suggested so they can buy foreclosed homes!!!! This is ridiculous, let thousands more foreign IT workers into the US and then lay off thousands more Americans???? How will that help, except to let large companies increase their profits.

Short term, you would expect that this will create IT jobs in the US. But since the healthcare field is ‘underdeveloped’ in IT terms, big companies will jump in, Think IBM, and IBM does not Think about US jobs, they will immediately leverage their profits and outsource these jobs to India.

I think there is a strong possibilty that new jobs will be created. Here is the problem, where will these jobs be created? Will these jobs be sent out to outsourcing firms that will do the job cheaper? Will our tax dollars and the money U.S. residents spend on healthcare be used to generate jobs overseas?

Corporate America Outsourcing IT Jobs

Greedy corporations such as IBM that want to make even more money are selling us out for cheaper workers. This being the same company that just posted a profit on Wall Street, so I see why this was necessary. *Shakes Head* But please America buy our products from us. lol What a shame. This is happening to alot of IT depts in corporations throughout the US. It happened to me at a bank just recently. Just before Christmas I was told that I was to be let go but before I go I had to train my replacements from India. I was ticked inside but what options did have, none. I asked the bank if I take a big decrease in salary could I stay since I really liked working with them, nope. So here I am a computer engineer looking for work. We need to stop this from happening in our country or IT will not exist in the US anymore. Food for thought.

~Jim

The technology job will go overseas. The executive of the US based technology companies will benefit.