Donald Sears

Whether due to the economy or bad publicity or not, the maximum number of H-1B visa applications has not been reached yet. April 1 is when applications begin to be accepted, and based on the high demand in the last couple of years, analysts and immigration experts expected the numbers to be on par with […]

According to a recent Careerbuilder survey that polled 807 people between Feb. 20 and March 11, 41 percent of people laid off in the last three months found other full-time, permanent positions. How many in this study were laid off in the last three months? Good question. It’s not clear. The study says that it […]

Dice, the technology careers site, recently put out its April report, with something I found a bit controversial. Dice claimed, based on its annual salary survey, that the gender gap in salaries for tech workers is over. Over? Here’s how Tom Silver, vice president at Dice, put it in a recent release: “The gender gap […]

Props to Brian Watson at CIO Insight. You know when the New York Times pubs a piece entitled, “Do We Need Foreign Technology Workers?” things are bubbling to the surface. The article, which is part of a larger series on technology and immigration issues, is about much more than the controversial H-1B program. Think overall […]

Seems like anyone with an agenda slices and dices the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics for their own purposes. Separting the agenda from the facts gets murky sometimes. Case in point, one very large and seemingly influential group–TechAmerica–has recently promoted that for the majority of 2008 technology jobs grew, especially in software. To be fair, […]

New figures out from outplacement stalwart Challenger, Gray & Christmas show that technology layoff rates haven’t been this high since 2002. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the overall layoff numbers on a quarter-by-quarter basis (and in overall total) are not as close to the bubble-bursting era. Is that comforting? I wouldn’t […]

Hey, it’s Friday and you could use something for the weekend that’s more advice-driven than more blogosphere ranting and raving, right? Anyhoo, here is a quick video from the WSJ online that has some good advice for those of you on the job prowl. This is a less-than-3-minute video from the authors of “Guerrilla Marketing […]

Work at home for IBM? Well, your cable bill is about to go up. InformationWeek is reporting that IBM workers who work out of home offices will no longer be reimbursed for Internet access. While this trend may not surprise most of you who already pay for Internet access at home and happen to work […]

A recent study of 300 people in Australia appears to show that taking short, online breaks during the workday helps to give the mind a break and allows for better concentration and focus. The nitty-gritty of the study isn’t really discussed in too much depth (which makes me a tad skeptical of it) in the […]

The New York Times recently ran an article about the realities of being let go from Microsoft, a technology company not historically known for letting go of its own talent. In the past, those who left did so on their own or cashed out and retired comfortably. Things have changed. Earlier this year, Microsoft, one […]

IBM had layoffs last week. This week, it’s going to be Sun Microsystems. It’s a tough time to be selling servers at Sun. The news of Sun layoffs had been known as far back as November of last year (as part of a 6,000 employee reduction in staffing), but it appears that the company is […]

North Carolina has a whole lot more than really good college basketball going for it (sorry, Duke, UNC is still in the tournament). Forbes.com has placed Raleigh, N.C., as the city with the most upside for businesses and job growth potential in the United States that happens to boast a very large technology presence and […]