Where the Tech Jobs Aren't

The massive job losses associated with this recession haven't hit IT professionals as hard as those in other professions. Still, IT vendors are laying off workers, which hits occupations such as engineering hard.

According to the EE Times Asia, which surveyed engineers worldwide, fear is gripping engineers as sales at high-tech companies weaken. From its report:

If the global economic crisis was a high-tech design challenge, executives at high-tech giants like Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco System, Dell, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Nortel, Yahoo and even Sun Microsystems would be headhunting, beefing up their R&D teams and scouring the globe for the brightest engineering minds.

Instead, many of these companies, are frantically downsizing, discarding unprofitable business units, selling non-core operations, instituting a hiring freeze and eliminating thousands of skilled and experienced engineering jobs in a desperate bid to reduce costs and remain profitable in the midst of a horrid sales downturn. The result is a mind-freeze.

The article points out that Western engineers are deeply troubled by what they see as assaults by employers on their ability to fend for their families.

Unwittingly, many high-tech employers are encouraging that perception. Job cuts in Western regions are often followed by announcements of continued hiring in lower-cost centers. Seemingly, one set of employees is being swapped for another at a time of economic weakness, hence the rising tide of fear.

Engineers are equally split on whether they'd recommend their field as careers for their children.

Finance Dreamer Eyes IT Career

On college campuses across the country, students who once thought of a career on Wall Street, now find themselves looking elsewhere as the financial meltdown vanquishes their dreams of making it big in the canyons of Manhattan.

One of the beneficiaries of those shattered dreams could be the IT field. Take, for instance, Vinay Lekharaju who entered college with hopes of becoming an investment banker but now is studying for a master in engineering management at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. Here's what Lekharaju told Jin Noh, writing for The Duke Chronicle:

"I actually applied to quite a few companies and only got a few calls back. The economy makes it difficult and I don't see it improving. Friends of mine are more or less apprehensive to go into investment banking while many are being laid off."

Lekharaju said he'll seek a job in IT consulting once he graduates, but might resurrect his dream to pursue a finance career when the economy improves.

Citing stats from BusinessWeek, the article pointed out that fewer than 3% of the students in Duke's master in engineering management class of 2009 intend to seek finance jobs vs. 17% from the class of 2009.

A few years back, I interviewed then Pratt School Dean Kristina Johnson, now provost at Johns Hopkins University, about getting more students to major in technology fields, including engineering. Click here to watch the video interview of Johnson.