Realistic Outlook on the Job Situation in the IT Market for 2007-2009
1. IT market has not even recovered from the 2001 Dot Com Bubble crash. See
NASDAQ for details. The market capitalization now is only 1/3 of the 2001
market, therefore, the number of jobs available is maximum of 50%, comparing
to 2001.
2. In 2001-2005, the educational institutions continued producing more and
more new ITs on the market. The value of most popular IT certifications (like
MSCE and CCNA) has significantly declined.
2. With the Canadian dollar going up, numerous IT jobs outsourced from the US
to Canada (some 3-7 years ago) are being moved back to the US.
3. More and more IT jobs, Call Centers, DataCenters and software projects are
being moved to India and Philippines.
4. Canadian Call Centers in IT, TelCom and Banking support have lost at least
50% jobs in 2007. This caused some pressure on the IT job market.
5. Rising (skilled workers) immigration in 2006-2007 put even more pressure
on the job market.
6. Some IT jobs have been recently created in Alberta where the (oil)
industry is booming but much more jobs had been cut in other provinces due to
the declining manufacturing sector. The general job situation in Canada has
been stable due to the demand for jobs in construction and oil industry in
Alberta.
7. Today, the recruiters advise to use Networking to search for the jobs, for
the IT job competitive (well-paid) positions posted on the net normally gain
around 80-160 responses. In other words, if you know the employeer
personally, you have much higher chance to get the job.
8. The govermental prognosis for 2008-2009 did not take into account the most
recent factors (like, the expensive loonie). It is also not realistic for
some jobs (like IT support technician), showing much higher average payrate
than most of the techs could get. For the realistic situation, contact the
recruiters first.
About the author:
The author has a university degree in Engineering, MSCE (since 2000) and
Comptia A+ (since 2003) certifications, and an excellent command of English.
In the last 4 years, he has been working in Canada as an IT technician for a
wage a little more than official minimum wage, and barely meeting the ends
with a family of four. To better understand the situation like this, see the
comments to
www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2007/10/03/geeks/
Note that the techs earn, on average, five time less money than they
companies charge for their work.
For the above (numerous) reasons, the author would refrain his son from going
into IT in the future, unless he was in India, Pakistan, or China.
P.S. The purpose of the above is not to stop you from getting an IT job, if
you have already invested into it your lots of your efforts, time and money
(like me), but to prevent those, who have not already started, from chosing a
wrong way. If you prove to be successful in an alternative field, your
donation is (will be) greatly appreciated.
P.P.S. The purpose of the above is not to prevent anyone from immigrating to
Canada. People from poor and desperate countries will fill up the number of
immigrants to the limit in any case (for it is probably better to be a
low-pay worker and struggle to survive in Canada than to be an engineer in a
poor country), even if the people from the rich countries change their mind
(see the immigration statistics by country for this). For those from any of
the European countries: think twice before immigrating, unless you have a job
proposal here. The real unemployment rate is much higher than the official
rate (f.e., any member of the family searching for a job is not considered
unemployed if there is a working member in a family).
