2009 IT job market

EU in more or less the same boat as the US, employment-wise

Just for grins, I decided to jump over to the other side of the Atlantic to take a look at the employment picture over there to see how we stack up against the world’s largest aggregated economy. Given the state of global markets and economic trends, it should come as no huge surprise that things aren’t terribly different in Europe than they are here in the US, except perhaps to observe that where some of our (un)employment curves seem to be flattening out, theirs are still climbing steeply, whether viewed in terms of overall unemployment or youth employment.

To see and ponder some numbers for yourself, check out the EU employment situation and social outlook for June 2009 (click the PDF link for “Related Documents” to grab this report). The report analysis does, however, point to “deceleration in the page of the labour market deterioration” — in other words, the same phenomenon of things not getting worse as quickly as they did at the end of last year or in Q1 2009. That said, at 8.9 percent for June, EU overall unemployment isn’t quite as bad as US unemployment, which the US Bureau Of Labor Statistics posted at 9.4 percent for the same period. FWIW, it also looks like IT employment in Europe isn’t quite as hard hit as here in the US, either (see page 8 of the EU report cited above for more info). I was also  a little tickled to see that the EU reports more directly on employment in the IT sector as “Computer and related activities.”

CollegeRecruiter Lists Entry-level Jobs and Internships

What with the semester near its end and the summer drawing on, young people’s thoughts turn to employment. The CollegeRecruiter.com Web site has compiled a nice press release (dated 4/7/09) entitled “Best and Worst States in Which to Find an Internship or Entry-Level Job.” Here’s a tabular recap of their results:

There are lots of interesting things to observe about these numbers. First and foremost, it looks like (surprise) the states with the biggest populations float to the top of these rankings. Second, the absolute numbers for internships are miniscule, with the numbers for entry-level positions merely small. These numbers don’t look incredibly encouraging to me, until I stop to think that most internships don’t get advertised much, if at all (mostly they’re doled out through alma mater affiliations and/or family and friend connections).

It all adds up to a pretty interesting summer for underclassmen and -women looking for work, and a tough slog for recent grads trying to find their first jobs in IT. Good luck to one and all, and may your school, friend, and family connections help you find something. There’s not much on the boards at all, apparently.

The Slide Is Slowing, But Which Way Is Up?

Recent jobless claims continue to flatten out, but at 8.9% overall, unemployment is still on the high side for the US from a historical perspective (the last time we experienced such rates was in the 1980s, in fact). This creates an interesting situation, in which everybody — including me — is looking for signs of hope wherever they might be found. Recent activity on the stockmarket still shows some vacillation in a sometimes-up, sometimes-down pattern, so financial markets are still uncertain as well.

What does all this mean for IT employment? Conventional wisdom is that those who have jobs should be glad, and do what they can to keep them, and that those looking for work need to turn over as many rocks as possible to find something or anything while the unemployment situation remains so tough. On the other hand, lots of more aggressive technologists and economists believe that technology employment is a bellwether that usually pushes to the front of the group of employment sectors that lead the economy out of a slump (or deep recession, in our current case).

The problem is that while numbers aren’t sliding down as fast as they were in the last quarter of 2008, nor the first quarter of this year, they’re neither on the way up for overall employment, nor particularly upward-inclined for IT in particular. If IT is to lead the economy, the destination isn’t yet clear: as far as I (or anybody else can tell), we’re still meandering around with no easy way to connect the dots along our recent path, nor a definite trend yet in sight.

All I can conclude is that it’s still time to hunker down, and tread the conservative path. As I indicated earlier in this blog, that means if you’ve got a job right now (or work if you’re a freelancer like me) be grateful. If you’re looking for work, alas, this means it’s time to look harder and perhaps even to consider a move to those few markets where employment opportunities are relatively more abundant. Ouch!