Countless stories from former technology workers saying they couldnt get back on their feet after a professional setback or layoff illustrate a lack of resilience in the IT field, experts say.
In an anonymous blog entry, a former U.S. technology worker, programmer and system analyst wrote that after more than 20 years of work on large-scale IBM systems and databases he is “functionally unemployed at the age of 50.” The writer calls himself “almost unemployable.”
This entry is just one of the many stories told by lifelong technology professionals that are unemployed or underemployed or have been forced to work in other fields as their jobs disappeared.
In few areas are job skills more perishable than IT, it would seem.
“Depending on the area that an engineer [is in] or [the] technology that they are in, being out of a job for 6 months or a year can be the equivalent of a career death threat,” said Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT Research.
Even people currently holding IT jobs are not much better off in terms of their future prospects.