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The Almighty Buck

Post-crash Salary Survey 415

Posted by Hemos from the checking-out-the-world dept.
MrRules writes "It's that time again; the 2002 salary survey's are out. This year there's an interesting twist: SAGE, SANS and Sun's BigAdmin site have combined to run the largest global participation sysadmin salary survey ever done. What I like is that this is different to those surveys done by HR departments -- this is real data on how you spend your time, by sysadmins for sysadmins. It'll be interesting to see how things have changed over the past 18 months."
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Post-crash Salary Survey More

Post-crash Salary Survey

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  • military (Score:2, Funny)

    by drizuid ( 444751 )
    Well, I'm a systems admin for the army, and you know what? I am almost positive every sysadmin job's salary is higher than mine.

    • Re:military (Score:5, Interesting)

      by corbettw ( 214229 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:39AM (#5651013) Journal
      Actually, maybe not. I'm a sysadmin in the Navy (IT2, that's SGT to you, ground pounder), and with BAQ, BHA, BAS, completely free medical, per diem, 30 days vacation a year, and so forth and so on, I'm making roughly the equilivant of about $50,000 a year. There are some sysad jobs out there now making far less than that, and my last civilian job didn't pay much more.

      Of course, being in a hostile fire zone (read: no taxes) helps some. :)
    • I read that there are two Compaq servers running around in vans (not sealed against dust unfortunately) which control the battlefield system to ensure against friendly fire.

      I wonder what standard programs they are running. Best not say though, since that would give a list of known security holes.

      Let's hope you're very, very good.

    • Re:military (Score:3, Interesting)

      by billysara ( 264 )
      Try working in Academia....

      I'm the sole admin, postmaster, backup/veritas & webmaster, for a network over 120 UNIX machines, with everything from Linux PC's&Mac's, through Ultra5's, to E6500's, 48-processes IBM pSeries and 30-way SGI boxes.
      About 350 users worth of "drag" to go with it...

      Salary works out at about 29,000 dollars.

      Which is why I code pr0n sites "out of hours" :-)

      • Re:military (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Sethb ( 9355 )
        Ugh, I work in Academia too, and you're getting screwed. Our campus won't even hire a full-time IT person of any type for under $33K or so. Now if you're a part timer, or a temp, then you may get less, of course...

  • small job (Score:5, Funny)

    by Syncroswitch ( 656450 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:11AM (#5650932)
    I am currently admin for my laptop "." And I have to tell you I dont pay myself squat. damn the management.

  • Sobering Thought (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zeoslap ( 190553 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:13AM (#5650940) Homepage
    Don't know about you but I get worried that this is as good as it gets salary wise, after big jumps through the bubble it's quite possible that this is the pinnacle of our (techies) earning potential for a long time to come (I know boo hoo, but still a strange position to be in)
    • I know what you mean. When I was looking before going it alone I couldn't find a job that would pay more than I was on (which was pretty average). If you asked if they might go up the pimp normally said "No its industry standard". For once I think they were telling the truth

      Rus

    • Re:Sobering Thought (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dev11 ( 635413 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @04:13AM (#5651091)
      I am not sure if this is the peak or not. Certainly it is at best at a state of diminishing returns right now. I think this is just part of the shakedown that was inevitable after the boom of the 90's. The day of the HTML "developer" making 100k a year are long past. The overall quality of the tech sector will be better but smaller in size. Those of us are competant will still be able to find work, although some concessions may be necessary, such as relocating.

      At least with sysadmin, I would think the chances of having your job outsourced to India or somewhere else are less, at least some on site presence is still required. With a smaller tech sector, I think a diverse skill set will be mandatory. I myself am a part time admin, part time developer, and am always looking to expand my skill set. Browsing employment ads recently, employers seem to want an ever expanding set of skills and experience. I have BS in CS, and 6 years experience, but I may end up doing some of the (mostly meaningless) certs that HR drones seem to like.

      • Re:Sobering Thought (Score:3, Insightful)

        by teaserX ( 252970 )
        > At least with sysadmin, I would think the chances of having your job outsourced to India or somewhere else are less, at least some on site presence is still required.

        Sure. Then they move all of the machines to India.

      • The day of the HTML "developer" making 100k a year are long past.

        Good riddance to those days. Worst thing about the boom was all the loudmouthed "web guys" in bars bragging about how much money they made. :)

        Browsing employment ads recently, employers seem to want an ever expanding set of skills and experience.

        The only people we are still interviewing have very specialized knowledge to go along with a diverse skillset. A checklist of certs and skills may get HR interested in your resume, but the in

      • Re:Sobering Thought (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 4of12 ( 97621 )

        Those of us are competant will still be able to find work

        Of course, it wouldn't hurt if we wuz gud spelerz ether:)

        Seriously, though, competence is only the first step.

        A close friend manages a couple of dozen IT people and frequently is in a position to evaluate candidates for positions. Turnover is less than the booming late 1990's, but still happens.

        She looks for people that are

        1. competent technically (in fact, top-notch)
        2. have a professional and friendly attitude (yes they'll fill out the stupid TPR

    • Why sobering ? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @08:13AM (#5651565) Homepage

      What you are saying is that the last 4 years have created unrealistic salaries for people who skills do not give the business benefits those salaries demand.

      Or to put it another way, if you plot the salary curve for the last 20 years and factor out the .com boom we are actually not doing too badly at all.

  • why do they need my e-mail??? (Score:5, Informative)

    by targo ( 409974 ) <targo_t&hotmail,com> on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:14AM (#5650943) Homepage
    Any survey where the very first question is "What is your e-mail address?" makes me very very suspicious, especially when they collect all sorts of financial data as well.
    Still, given Slashdot's anti-spam attitude, I thought that maybe they are a decent organization and checked their privacy policy. Vain hope, it actually bluntly says: SAGE might also use this email address to notify you of other related news and we all know what this usually means, right?
    Now call me paranoid but I've been burned by much more innocent looking sites asking for my e-mail address.

  • Pay Rise? Hah (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:15AM (#5650945) Homepage
    In my last job which I left a few months back there had been a pay freeze on for 3 years. Whilst the price of good went up our wages stayed the same so in essence we were taking a pay cut. Going from what I've been hearing frm other people who are looking is that people are offering pretty much the same of down. Thats the way I'm reading it.

    The economy is down and as there are so many people desperate to get jobs companies know they can offer lower rates and there will normally be someone who will be able to do the job well and except whatever the company is willing to pay.

    I would be interested to know if there were still any growth areas but I think not apart from prehaps skills in very specialised subjects

    Rus
    • Yes I'm afraid that's the truth. I do freelance work and even that I have to offer pretty cutthroat rates.
    • The market will always find a level. Lawyers get paid more partly because they are relatively rare, highly trained individuals and partly because they have a pretty specific 'lifestyle' to support.

      The firm won't be as happy seeing you out with the kids in McDonalds as they will seeing you schmooze a client in a fancy 40 quid a plate restaurant.

      Same with IT, and any other job. Binmen dont have to support a fancy car and a wardrobe of expensive suits - so they can afford to work for less. Sysadmins might li

      • Re:Pay Rise? Hah (Score:2, Insightful)

        by jawtheshark ( 198669 )
        Scruffy lawyers dont instil confidence - they NEED £500 shoes!

        Sure they do, no doubt about that. But then I'd rather trust a SysAdmin that is unshaven wears a tshirt and short and you can smell from 10 meters away. Because, honestly: who would trust a SysAdmin in a suit that has a nice perfume on?

        (Writing this myself at work while wearing a suit... Damn coporate policies..."

    • Re: Don't forget the Indian factor (Score:5, Informative)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @04:40AM (#5651148) Journal
      Do not ignore the India factor. 38% of all IT jobs are now outsourced for minimal wage in India according to the garnet group. This was done not just for companies looking for cheap labor but also to keep the American market oversatuared and thus salaries go down to rock bottom.

      Most admin jobs are typically in the mid 30's now for 5 years experience and if you have many years perhaps you can make as much as 50k. The .com era is diffinetly over. I saw an ad in the paper for a jr FreeBSD admin for only 20k a year!

      • Thats exactly why I am now in the PBX industry. I'm making $41k for a Jr. Nortel admin job, and the industry is even growing a little.

        I'll just wait here until things get better outside. (I still freelance on the side to keep my edge.)

      • Do not ignore the India factor. 38% of all IT jobs are now outsourced for minimal wage in India according to the garnet group

        And boy just about now, people are beginning to wonder why the hell they outsourced. Slowly *very* slowly the penny is dropping with management that cheap != good.

        Make no mistake, those that have been biding their time over the past 18-24 months are starting to see market improvements, and are in place to maximize this.

        I've seen people that have been made redundant 12 months ago

  • Are there still sysadmin only jobs out there? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zorkmid ( 115464 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:17AM (#5650949)
    I had to take a position as Sysadmin, Oracle DBA, Developer (mostly java) in order to keep my phony baloney 6 figures salary when my dot.com went dot.bellyup. Are there still jobs out there where you're just doing systems administration?

  • Hard data... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Monkelectric ( 546685 ) <[moc.cirtceleknom] [ta] [todhsals]> on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:18AM (#5650952)
    My salary declined 100% to 0 FUCKING DOLLARS per hour, week, month AND year. And i'm pretty sure its a republicans fault.

    (before you mod, learn to take a joke)

    • Re:Hard data... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Malcontent ( 40834 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:42AM (#5651022)
      " My salary declined 100% to 0 FUCKING DOLLARS per hour, week, month AND year. And i'm pretty sure its a republicans fault."

      you may be more right then you think [yahoo.com]
      • Seriously, Bill Clinton made a deal with the devil for a gold fiddle. I mean, LOOK AT THAT.
      • I know that chart makes Clinton look good and Bush look really bad, but I'm not quite sure you can assign the blame/credit quite so easily. Clinton had the benefit of a very good economy in the 90's. You will notice that even Clinton's record surplus started declining in 2000, the same time as the economy.

        • Re:Hard data... (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Clinton had the benefit of a very good economy in the 90's. You will notice that even Clinton's record surplus started declining in 2000, the same time as the economy.

          And undoubtedly exacerbated by then newly minted "President" Bush who spent every moment talking down the economy until it started rolling downhill, just so that he could propose his "tax cuts for the rich" program.

          Mark my words, we're gonna feel the negative effects of this one-termer's indifference to the economy (as it relates to the bo

        • Re:Hard data... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Malcontent ( 40834 )
          " I know that chart makes Clinton look good and Bush look really bad, but I'm not quite sure you can assign the blame/credit quite so easily"

          OTOH you also can not claim that he had nothing to do with it.

          GW for example created a brand new dept which ended up being one of the largest departments in history. In other words he grew the size of the federal govt more then anybody else in recent history.

          He also undertook one of the largest rollbacks in civil rights in history.

          He of course also went to war and
    • Have you suffered from salary caps or layoffs this year? Are you having trouble making ends meet? Perhaps you should explore an exciting career in the fields of Drug Sales and Murder for Hire! While only a lucky few will win the lotto or be given the chance to make 55 million dollars while running a major company into the ground, selling illegal drugs to school children and killing people for money requires neither luck nor any prior experience! Reserve your spot now for a position in the only growth indust
    • wow, so you were on $0 before as well. amazing...


      cLive ;-)

  • Pay Cuts (Score:5, Interesting)

    by md81544 ( 619625 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:19AM (#5650956) Homepage
    I work as a contraact programmer in the City, London, and over the last year have taken on extra work in C, C++, VB, PHP, JSP, ASP, Oracle, SQL Server and shell scripting as a result of other guys leaving.

    Over the same period I've had four ten percent "take it or leave us" pay cuts, leaving me with a huge dent in my take-home pay.

    How are other programmers faring? What's your plan? I'm sticking where I am for the time being and DEFINITELY plan to move on as soon as the market picks up.

    • ...the sysadmins that run the linked site in the article get a payraise for dealing with a /.ing.

    • Re:Pay Cuts (Score:4, Informative)

      by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Thursday April 03, 2003 @04:03AM (#5651068) Homepage
      Unless you are working as contractor pay cuts are not legal in the UK. I would check with your HR dept or the CAB. If you were fired for not taking a pay cut you would have good grounds for an industrial tribunal

      Rus
      • How could pay cuts be illegal? What is the logic behind that?
        • Its to protect the workers from the companies. It was passed into law in the UK a few years ago. It means that companies can't keep cutting your salary

          Rus
          • Its to protect the workers from the companies. It was passed into law in the UK a few years ago. It means that companies can't keep cutting your salary

            If I owned a company under this law, my employees would also be protected from those nasty pay increases.

          • In a free market you get what you're worth. If you don't, you quit. I know that they probably have the best intentions, but which is preferable? Cut 5 peoples salary 20% and keep them all on? Or fire one person because you can't cut salaries?
            • I know that they probably have the best intentions, but which is preferable? Cut 5 peoples salary 20% and keep them all on? Or fire one person because you can't cut salaries?
              Declare bankrupcy, go unemployed and take advantage of the benefit system. Socialism rocks :-)
          • That seems pretty damn stupid to me. I'd rather have a paycut then a lose my job, but then again england does seem to have a better unemployment system.
      • " Unless you are working as contractor pay cuts are not legal in the UK. "

        Bullshit.

        Well, OK, it's true they can not FORCE you to take it - but the alternative is that you quit your job.

        It is legal.

        It happens.

        It is also fair (which is better - take a 10% paycut or have the firm have to lay off 10% of the workforce?).

        Deal with it.
    • So, excuse me if my heart doesn't bleed for you.

      • So, excuse me if my heart doesn't bleed for you.

        And this looks like petty jealousy to me.

        This is how the market works. During a skills shortage people can make a lot of money (usually it's the people that are good at their job that make the money) at the moment things are slack so people make less money. What is worse is those people that bluffed their way into permanent positions at inflated salaries during the boom and cannot be removed.

        For the record, yes I earned lots of money in 2001 and less in

    • CSFB, right?

      Cheers,
      Ian

    • Re:Pay Cuts (Score:3, Insightful)

      by WiPEOUT ( 20036 )
      Take it quietly for now, then remember it when the market picks up again and you get to choose: who to work for, when you want to leave, and how much to charge. >:)

      My current plan is to ride this out in my current, moderately stable job where I'm still earning dotcom-boom money, and spend even more time than usual on skilling up.
    • If you're a contracter then I've no sympathy for you. Working as a contracter means that you make a shedload when times are good and get squeezed when times are bad. That's the nature of the business. Oh, and don't complain about being given the opportunity to expand your skillset. That is a Good Thing and will improve your marketability. And yes, I work in the City too, so I have a fair idea of what you're making.

  • heh.. we don't do much.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by marcushnk ( 90744 ) <senectus@nOSPam.gmail.com> on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:21AM (#5650962) Journal
    If the /.ed state of the server is anything to go by.. We just sit around /. all day and bring down servers collectivly..

    oh well.. back to my coffee..

  • As a developer... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by netsavior ( 627338 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:28AM (#5650984)
    It would be nice if my company (and my previous company) could afford a Sysadmin... Be happy if you can be in the Sysadmin survey cause every developer I know is in a "Self-admin" shop... where the network has 100 band-aids and nobody can quite remember all of the Root passwords.

    • Just do what we do -- make all your root passwords a single carriage return! Easy to remember, and nigh impossible to

      HACKED BY CHINESE

      • Very funny...

        Admin passwords for workstations usually is the serial number on the machine. That's very effective, and someone who has no physical access to the computer will have a hard time to figure it out. It's not as if you can do a dictionary scan on a serial number...

  • Take my word, don't come to Spain
    I'm thinking about moving to Germany or something like that to get a good pay

  • This survey is only going to tell 1/2 of the story (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sensor ( 15246 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:35AM (#5651001)
    It won't suprise me at all if this survey shows negligable changes in salaries over the last 12 months - companies prefer to make redundancies to cutting wages as the effect on moral of those who are left is much less.

    However, if the statistics were an equivalent of GDP for IT industry professionals (i.e. an estimate of the total take home pay of the profession) then the figures would almost certainly be utterly horrible.

    According to www.jobsmeta.co.uk and www.jobstats.co.uk advertised vacancies in the UK are running around 50% of the middle of last year - in addition the hourly rate/annual salaries have also slipped (due to simple supply/demand). It wouldn't suprise me if IT-GDP (for want of a better term) was down 20-30% on the year.

    Really this is just a way of saying things are tough all over - I'd like not to complain, but as one of the many people who are looking at the moment this market sucks and the reasons can't really be reduced to simple one-liners or attributed to anyone/thing in particular.

    Right now a couple of months off to get some R&R thats been lacking over the last 5 years doesn't go amiss - but in a couple more I'm likely to get really flexible in what I'll look at just to avoid going mad at home. My main concern isn't a pay-cut (my essential bills are around 30% of my last salary) - but I don;t want to take a job outside of my key skills, people pay a huge amount of attention to your last role so it would be like writting off my career to date.

    In the mean time I'm doing the odd day of freelance work - its not a lot but its covering the bills.

    I guess we'll see where we end up.
    • As a contract Sys Admin I was in the position of being able to take time off in 2001 but was without work for periods in 2002. The survey asks the number of days worked during each year so presumably they will be able to produce a rate comparison as well as a total salary comparison.

      It was frightening to see how much I was down from 2001 to 2002 :(

  • The punchline? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Captain Beefheart ( 628365 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:45AM (#5651029)
    "If you worked less than two months during 2002, please skip this survey."

    Houston, we have a problem.

  • Crash? (Score:2, Troll)

    by Devil's BSD ( 562630 )
    OK, although many /.ers are out of jobs, THIS IS NOT A CRASH. It's a recession. Even Alan Greenspan, the 20th time winner of the Most Boring Person Award, says so. Also, although i hate to add a political twist to it, it's not the Republicans' fault: it started when Clinton was in office and exhibited itself fully when Bush took over. September 11th just 'broke the camel's back' so to speak.
    If you want a system administrator job, look into the medical field. At least, if you're a surgeon, you won't have

    • Re:Crash? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @04:48AM (#5651164) Journal
      It depends on what your field is.

      For regular bussinesmen its a recession. For IT workers its not just a crash but a depression. Not only are our jobs being cut but we are being outsourced to India at the same time. The good news is that the pay rate is so rediclously low that many people who went into IT for the money will leave. This leaves true geeks left assuming they have college degrees and years of experience.

      I myself am applying at Wallmart tomorrow. I am young in my 20's and have great computer knowledge but only 2 years experience and no college degree. HR actually thinks computer science degree's teach you desktop troubleshooting as well as system administration and programming skills. Its a shame even linux kernel developers can not get jobs today because they have no cs degree as the same time vb weenies who are gifted in mathmatics are taking the jobs instead because hr thinks that degree will make them better programmers.

    • Re:Crash? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by afidel ( 530433 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @05:09AM (#5651197)
      This is the first tripple dip recession in history and while Greenspan has done a phenominal job of keeping it from being a crash Bush has not helped one bit. In fact his retarded trickle down let's give the top .25% 80% of the tax benifits policies are sure to extend the downturn and keep millions of working folks underemployed for years to come. Sept 11'th had little effect on the economy other than the airline industry and general consumer outlook (though even that is debatable given the strong housing market, people generally don't invest in big ticket items unless they feel at least somewhat good about the future)

      • Re:Crash? (Score:3, Informative)

        by volkris ( 694 )
        Tripple dip?
        No such thing.

        There was barely a first dip, and not nearly a second. Claiming a third is completely making up numbers.

        But then again, your picture of the "tax benefits policies" is so incredibly breaking from reality that it's no surprise you seem to be working from a different set of numbers on the recession count also...

      • Re:Crash? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Quill_28 ( 553921 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @08:35AM (#5651667) Journal
        3 people:

        1. pays $90,000 in taxes
        2. pays $9,000 in taxes
        3. pays $1,000 in taxes

        You realize that you overcharged and have $10,000 extra dollars. How should the money be divided up?

        Then people complain when the 3rd person only gets $100 dollars back/cut and the 1st person gets $9,000 back/cut. Saying the tax cut/rebate was just for the rich.

      • Re:Crash? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Kombat ( 93720 )
        let's give the top .25% 80% of the tax benifits

        Gee, has it occurred to you that the reason it seems that the "rich" (defined as "anyone who makes more than you") are the beneficieries of all the tax cuts is because they're the ones who pay BY FAR the most taxes? Perhaps 80% of the tax benefits are going to the top 1% because the top 1% contribute 80% of the government's tax revenue? Hmm?

        WARNING: I made those numbers up, but my point remains. The majority of tax dollars come from a small minority of

    • I know Bush is the pom pom queen for the economy, but if his past successes are good predictors of future success, our economy is doomed.

      The skeletons in his closet are busted companies and state shortfalls in the billions.

      It's easy to cut taxes, but I'd like to see some cuts in spending too.

      (end rant)

      Sorry, it just ticks me off that the economy sucks and Bush is asking for more money to go piss off other countries.

      On another note, if I was in Iran, I'd be worried. I can imagine how worried I'd feel i

  • For once... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:51AM (#5651042)
    It looks like us geeks are bringing down the curve.

  • A Grammar Nazi Writes .... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Burb ( 620144 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:53AM (#5651046)
    survey's? surveys!

  • My condition (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Devil's BSD ( 562630 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @03:53AM (#5651048) Homepage
    Before:
    Occupation: Student (K-12/Post-secondary) with a side dabbling of NT and UNIX administration.
    Salary: After:
    Occupation: Student (K-12/Post-secondary) with a side dabbling of NT and UNIX administration.
    Salary: How many of you share my plight?
    • Yeah. Someone's gonna give a high school kid a job when there are tons of college graduates who can't find them. Besides, high schoolers shouldn't be sysadmins anyway. Nobody takes you seriously, you can't work more than part-time hours and you should be doing better things with your time. It doesn't even help you on your resume. I speak from experience here (I had a sysadmin job for 2 years in high school) and now I really wish I hadn't. Don't be in such a hurry to grow up, you might miss all the fun you w

  • There Are Jobs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fuzzybunny ( 112938 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @04:21AM (#5651111) Homepage Journal

    Trains keep running, doctors keep doctoring, governments keep gover^H^H^H^H^Hfucking stuff up, and life goes on.

    Bubble or not, over the last few years IT has radically changed the way companies and organizations go about their everyday business. Tech is too embedded in the daily needs of banks, insurances, logistics companies, consultancies, porn peddlers, whatever, for everything to go to hell. We are currently in a recession/depression/dip/whatever. They happen. Economies are cyclical. This one just happens to be a bit more brutal to IT than usual.

    A lot of people lose their jobs, companies restructure and try to cut costs, and others go under. But what's left, and despite the panic-mongering crap you see in the media, that would be the vast majority of businesses, still needs people to design, program, operate and fix their machinery.

    Many of you/us may be saddled with extra work from fired colleagues and cranky end-of-life systems. Do you think this will last? Companies are starting to realize that the lost productivity from overwork, obsolescent gizmos, and low morale.

    Granted, this may apply more to the 'average' tech job (I can hear people screaming already--given the amount of work we all do, none of it's 'average'.) But already I'm seeing quite a few companies hurting enough to hire tech consultants, because they need someone to fix their shit. NOW. As in, they're losing revenue because stuff isn't working. They're grimacing a lot more than they were two years ago when I hand over my invoice, but they have no choice.

    In fact, the wiser companies with a bit of a stash on the side are hiring. The knowledge they want may be a lot more specialized, but once again, welcome to supply and demand.

    Lest you think I'm mindlessly spewing optimism, I'm worried. I'm an independent network security consultant, and in fact, I've had nights of stark terror worrying about the immediate future. But you know what? Life goes on, things will pick up, and there'll be jobs. There's always work if people know you're good.

    Might be a wise to put off buying that Ferrari for a couple of months, though. Now stop posting to slashdot and pick up a Java book :)
    • I think you and Greenspan are a little too optimistic. The fact is, nearly the entire world economy is in a slump and it's not improving quickly nor substantially.

      Greenspan can cut the interest rate to -5 and it still won't make a difference at this point. What we've been witness to is alot of corporate scandals shifting wealth from the investors to a handful of guys that run the corporations. Just the other day WorldCom found that --oops!-- there's another 2 billion unaccounted for. I guarantee you it's
    • You are right, there are jobs. But as the survey results will more than likely point out, they are not at the ridiculous salaries people were being hired at during the bubble from 1999 to 2001. Face it, most IT salaries were outrageous! I was making more than friends who were coming out of law school. The jobs, however, are not doing the same thing people were doing between 1999 and 2001.

      I'm not a sysadmin -- I just accepted a new position as a business analyst after being laid off for 6 months by the

  • Survey (Score:5, Funny)

    by Captain Large Face ( 559804 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @04:56AM (#5651175) Homepage

    Isn't it a bit dangerous posting this survey to Slashdot? Whenever encountering a multiple choice form, it is inevitable that some Slashdot regulars will feel compelled to enter "CowboyNeal" as their answer.

    HINT: Try the "Other" field for question nine:

    9. What general category best describes your primary professional focus?

    That ought to confuse the shit out of them.

  • I don't know about anybody else but I found that my salary is inversly proportional to how often I crash the servers I look after. Its definatly lower post crash!!

    Anyone find the same?

  • Unemployed, but life is good. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 03, 2003 @06:12AM (#5651315)
    After leaving a well paid IT job which was driving me insane, I took a year out travelled, visited friends and family I haven't seen for years.

    Now I find taking this year out makes it very differcult convincing new employers to take me on depsite my qualifications and long work history. Why? The competition for new jobs is so intense and candidates who are still at work are a more attractive proposition for an interviewer.

    But now I'm catching up on new technologies in my spare time, learning a new foreign language, keeping fit, made some great friends too.

    I'm just glad I saved the pennies while times were good.

    All I need now is a girlfriend. :^]

  • Job Loss... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by realperseus ( 594176 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @06:22AM (#5651348)
    The *rude awakening* happened to me just 2 weeks ago. My old job as a telecommunication analyst paid close to 50K/yr. Later this morning I will be interviewing for a telecommunication assistant position paying 32K/yr. If offered the position I will probably take it...

    Businesses are cutting back. They are asking more of you than ever before. This *is* the reality of today's job market.

    Looking on the bright side, at least my daughter who is presently attending college as well as my college bound son will be able to get financial assistance thru TAP and PELL... *grin

  • Remote management? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Vrallis ( 33290 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @10:53AM (#5652430) Homepage
    I admin servers and routers for about 150 sites on our WAN. The survey specifically only touches on local-site equipment.

    I'd say this is pretty unrealistic not to include remote management.

  • Salary in the computer field (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Brad1138 ( 590148 ) <brad1138@yahoo.com> on Thursday April 03, 2003 @12:03PM (#5652970)
    I know a lot of you guys won't like hearing this. The computer technician of the future is the auto mechanic of today. I am sure that when cars were new, an auto mechanic was like a doctor and well paid. Now most are kids that grew up with 10 broken down cars in there front yard and a father continuously working on them. Not a very sought after job. Even today most 15 yr old kids can build a computer, in the future everybody will be able build networks, web sites etc. and no one will want to.

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