I am part of the first generation of workers. I have been employed in the IT field my entire career (28 years and counting). In that time I have witnessed and at times been the victim of IT downsizing, layoffs, and reductions in force. I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment that this time it is different and that difference is outsourcing.
In the last few years, I finally traded in my old comfortable "hats" as Software Engineer, Systems Administrator, Database Architect, and Applications Architect that served me so well for most of my career. I am now in "management" -- first as Manager and later Director for a large company - American Express. Yet for all my experience, expertise and titles, I was one of those IT resources laid off due to both the economic downturn and outsourcing.
While I am not a big proponent of outsourcing (it's hard to remain objective when one's livelihood is at stake), I understood that the economic forces driving companies to outsource IT were irresistible. My response to that realization was to be one of the first to make use of outsourcing within my department.
With the exception of such niche areas as Department of Defense contracts I believe, the days of large IT departments are over. My colleagues who wish to remain very technically rooted in IT face competition from a source that US manufacturing labor faced - and lost to -- decades ago: the outsourced overseas labor force. The cost of a technical function being performed offshore is being weighed against the same service done domestically, and the offshore cost is dramatically less.
We all acknowledge that outsourced and offshore IT projects take more time because of logistics and quality issues; but, ultimately, economics will determine how and where IT projects are performed.
What is my advice to my IT friends and colleagues? They should understand that economics will rule. For the foreseeable future, IT departments will be outsourced and, whenever cost effective, those functions will be carried out in countries where the standard of living is much lower then it is in the United States. In the long run, most of us who remain in the field will end up working for one of the Mega IT companies such as IBM or EDS, intelligence-sensitive niche areas, or small companies where the economies of scale in outsourcing do not apply.
Ken Rogers
IT Technical Management
