tech insecurity

I think that in economic times like the current time people tend to appreciate that they have jobs more. I don't know if this has a general impact on whether they like their jobs, but it certainly has an impact on how people value them. For my part, I definitely appreciate that I have a job, but I probably appreciated it about the same before the unemployment rate doubled.

I have been thinking about this because I think I assume something that most people do not assume. I figure that it is inevitable that I will be laid off at some point in the future. It could be tomorrow and it could be thirty years from now. It could be from my current employer or some other employer far in the future. Given the nature of modern job markets and the way I see various industries trending I do not see how I can avoid it indefinitely.

Most of the people who read this have been laid off or fired at least once. I am certainly among that number. The last place where I was laid off was especially tough because I lost a bit of trust in the experience. Against my better judgment I had been convinced by senior management that the consulting firm that I worked for would maintain enough work to employ me at least for a few years. Within a few months of that I was informed that my contract would be terminated four months later. I was one of the lucky ones who could not be immediately replaced at the customer site.

In technical fields I think it is just assumed that specific jobs will not be there forever. Certainly the required skill sets change enough that the nature of jobs today are not the same as the jobs a few years down the road. There is not as much call for a mainframe administrator or COBOL developer as there once was. Straightforward technical jobs also have a tendency to migrate offshore. Since I chose to pursue working in a technical field I should accept that this comes with the territory. It can still be a bit scary, though, because layoffs typically happen at times when few other companies are hiring. Also my skill set is broad and shallow rather than narrow and deep. This is good in my current position but it is the opposite of the ideal in a job search for anything other than an entry-level job.

My expectation causes me to approach things a little different than many other people. As an example, a coworker was talking to me about how a specific new vehicle would only cost a certain amount of money a month with a good-sized down payment and I noted that I was not comfortable having another monthly financial obligation. "Oh yeah," he replied, "You think you're going to be fired." I explained that this was not true, because I do not think that I am going to be let go in the near future. Since I figure it will happen some day, though, why get buried in even just a little debt?

While I think job insecurity is inevitable going forward, I do not think it should have to be. I think that most layoffs can be traced back to one of two things. The first is poor forecasting. During good times some companies probably grow a little too irrationally fast. The second is the myopic view on Wall Street that ignores that statistical variance for revenues and profits is unavoidable. Eventually, even the best companies are going to have bad quarters. It's only the Enrons and the Madoffs that don't. The street should not expect layoffs any time a company misses on earnings. Unless the market as a whole addresses two issues most industries will continue to be insecure places to maintain a career. I hope they get to work on that soon.