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Current News
Outsourcers to be Impact by HP Purchase of EDS - May 13th, 2008
The
elimination of jobs will put more pressure on outsource providers as there will
be a surplus of employees who will be out of work. In the
1970s that occurred in the US and that drove a recession. The question is will that be good for
the US job market or not. Only time
will tell. High paying IT jobs are being outsourced and off-shored - May 12th, 2008
According
to firms that outsource and/or off-shored IT operations, Janco found that many
high-wage, high-skill jobs that were once thought to be immune to outsourcing
are now being outsourced. Over 25 percent of these enterprises reported
high-skill IT jobs are being sent overseas to third parties
H-1B Violations generate a fine against company - May 10th, 2008
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that
iGate Mastech Inc. (iGate), a Pittsburgh computer consulting company, has agreed
to pay $45,000 in civil penalties to settle allegations that iGate discriminated
against United States citizens in its employment practices. The settlement also
requires iGate to train its recruitment personnel and to post a
nondiscrimination statement on its Web site. The settlement stems from the DepartmentÂ’s finding
that, between May 9, 2006, and June 4, 2006, iGate placed 30 job announcements
for computer programmers that expressly favored H-1B visa holders to the
exclusion of U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and other legal U.S.
workers. Such preference constituted citizenship status discrimination and is
prohibited by the Immigration and Nationality Act. Acting Assistant Attorney General for Justice
DepartmentÂ’s Civil Rights Division said the DOJ is committed to protecting the
right of all authorized workers in the United States against citizenship status
discrimination. The DOJ was pleased
to reach the settlement with iGate, and looks forward to continuing to work with
the business community to educate the public about the protections and
obligations under the anti-discrimination provisions of the Immigration and
Nationality Act. The Office of Special Counsel for
Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) in the Civil Rights
Division, which conducted the investigation in this matter, continues to monitor
iGate to ensure compliance with the settlement agreement. OSC is responsible for
enforcing the anti-discrimination provisions of the Immigration and Nationality
Act (INA), which protect U.S. citizens and certain work-authorized
individualsWorkauthind.htm from employment discrimination based upon citizenship
or immigration status. The INA also protects all work-authorized individuals
from national origin discrimination, unfair documentary practices relating to
the employment eligibility verification process, and from
retaliation. How should a CIO be compensated? - May 1st, 2008
When
CIOs start to think about compensation for their staffs, they need to consider
their own compensation. Some of the
questions that they should ask themselves are: Google Tags Morgan Stanley For its CIO - April 25th, 2008
(CNET News.com) Google has found its new chief
information officer, a programmer who rose through the ranks to run much
of Morgan Stanley's computing infrastructure. The new CIO was a managing director who led
the Morgan Stanley Application Infrastructure group. According to an internal Morgan Stanley
memo, the new CIO will leave Morgan Stanley at the end of the month to
pursue opportunities outside the firm. The memo also indicated that the new
CIO is no stranger to Google. While at Morgan Stanley, one of his projects
was working on initial public offering of Google in 2004, the memo. The last CIO at Google, left to become
president of the EMI digital unit. Earlier this month, rumors surfaced
that Morgan Stanley executive would be the new Google new CIO.
Running the Google computing infrastructure is a daunting challenge on which
the companys success hinges. Google not only has thousands of servers housed in
at least 36 data centers scattered around the globe, but also a
build-it-yourself culture that means the company is responsible for maintaining
much of its own technology. The CIO worked for Morgan Stanley computing operations for nearly 14 years including having worked on first Morgan Stanley Web site, its workstation software, and its intranet. - more informationH-1B visa program is not working - April 22nd, 2008
H-1B visa program is not working as it should be
based on the statistics that have been given to congress: Baby boomer retirements will impact IT - April 21st, 2008
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says one
in four workers will be 55 or older. And particularly in IT, there is not a
big influx of new talent. According to the Computing Research Association,
computer science enrollments dropped 14% each year between 2004 and 2006.
Although IT organizations certainly understand
these workforce trends, many are not taking significant measures to mitigate the
risks that the loss of intellectual capital seems to portend. Even outside of
IT, many companies seem unconcerned by boomer retirements. In a 2006 survey of
488 companies only 42% of the respondents said that the aging workforce was a
significant issue, and 29% said it had little or no significance. And in a nationwide study of 550 human resources
managers conducted by Monster.com last summer (view PDF), only 12% of the respondents said they consider knowledge
retention a high priority within their companies, even though one-third said
they expect at least 20% of their workforce to retire in the next
decade. The inescapable conclusion seems to be that many
businesses are perfectly content to see their boomers walk out the door. And
because so few organizations have taken the retirement issue seriously,
companies that want to transfer knowledge from older to younger workers have few
models to follow. As a result, those that are attempting to get ahead of the
retirement wave are finding themselves pretty much on their
own. AT&T Layoffs Will Impact 4,500 - April 18th, 2008
(IDG News Service) AT&T Inc. plans to lay off 1.5% of
its employees, primarily in management, in an effort to streamline its
operations, the company said today. AT&T expects its total number of employees to
remain stable in 2008 as the company hires additional employees to support
growth areas, AT&T said in the filing. In 2007, the company added about
7,000 employees, said an AT&T spokesman. This initiative is part of the companys move from a
collection of regional companies to one AT&T focused on customers, AT&T
said in the filing. The layoffs mean AT&T will take a
one-time charge of $374 million during the first quarter of 2008. AT&T is
scheduled to announce its first-quarter earnings Tuesday. AT&T reported a net income of $3.1 billion for
the fourth quarter of 2007. It's revenue for the quarter was $30.3
billion. IT Becoming a Male Bastion - April 15th, 2008
(eWeek) While women hold
51 percent of professional jobs in the United States, they make up only 26
percent of the IT work force, according to the National Center for Women &
Information Technology. Furthermore, fewer women worked in IT in 2008 than in
2000. But the loss of women in the technology field
begins long before they reach the professional level. The proportion of CS
(computer science) bachelor's degrees awarded to women has fallen from 36 to 21
percent between 1983 and 2006. Dr. Stephen Bloch, a professor in the Department of
Math and Computer Science at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York,
told eWEEK that computer science degree enrollments have been in the toilet
since 2001. What CIOs and CTOs need to do in order to succeed - April 14th, 2008
CIOs and CTOs need to be part of the
executive management team in order to succeed. They must: Private sector pay should keep rising - April 14th, 2008
(Reuters) -- U.S. private sector wage
growth should continue to accelerate in the months ahead on the back of a
healthy employment climate, according to a survey released Tuesday. The Bureau of National Affairs Inc., a
Washington, D.C.-based news publisher, said its revised third-quarter Wage Trend
Indicator rose to 100.86 from the final second-quarter index of 100.72. BNA put
the initial third-quarter reading at 100.92. "We expect year-over-year wage increases
to continue to accelerate modestly, even though the pace of job growth has
slowed recently," said economist Kathryn Kobe, who worked on the development of
the index for BNA. The indicator recorded its ninth straight
quarterly increase for the first time since 1996-1998, BNA said. A sustained increase in the indicator
generally foreshadows increased pressure for higher wages, BNA
said. Signs That Your Job is at Risk - April 13th, 2008
Your
job may be at risk when: Dell to Eliminate 3,200 Jobs - April 1st, 2008
Dell Inc., the world's second largest PC vendor,
plans to cut costs by $3 billion as it slashes the price of materials and
components going into its gadgets and reduces operating expenses, including
5,600 jobs in addition to the 3,200 it has already eliminated.
As part of its cost-cutting measures, Dell plans to
close a desktop-PC manufacturing plant in Austin. A massive shift in customer
preference for notebooks over the past three years was also a major factor in
the decision to close the plant, said a Dell executive. The company has already reduced its workforce by
3,200 people and plans to cut around 5,600 more jobs. H1-B Visa Battle Rages - March 28th, 2008
(Computerworld) WASHINGTON — Stymied so far in
their efforts to get Congress to allow more skilled foreign workers into the
U.S., H-1B visa supporters are asking the Bush administration to extend the time
that foreign graduates of U.S. universities can work on student visas from one
year to 29 months.
A foreign student needs a degree to qualify for an
H-1B visa, but seniors who are graduating this spring won't have their degrees
before next Tuesday — the day that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
will begin accepting H-1B petitions for the government's 2009 fiscal year. The USCIS may get more than enough applications for
all of the available visas — 85,000 all told, including 20,000 set aside for
people who hold advanced degrees from U.S. universities — on April 1 alone. That
means upcoming graduates likely will have to wait until next year to apply. And
if they didn't succeed then in getting H-1B visas through the government's
random lottery process, they could be forced to leave the U.S. under current
student-visa rules. Proponents of changing those rules say that
increasing the amount of time a foreign graduate could work in the U.S., under a
program referred to as Optional Practical Training, would give students a better
chance of getting H-1B visas. In addition, the proposed change could be made
administratively, without any legislative action. Supporters of the idea have
been urging the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, which oversees the USCIS, to approve
the extension. Six Steps to Take if you are Laid off - March 25th, 2008
1. Go to the Human Resource
department they can tell you what the company is offering your 2. Understand what Benefits
you are entitled to 3. Know what monies you are
due for the time up to your getting a pink slipe 4. Understand what rights you
have a. Review your
employment agreement if you have one b. If there is a union see
what are entitled to c. Review your original
offer letter d. Know what the formal
policies of the company are as part of the ERISA for pension and health plans 5. Understand how severance
does and does not work 6. If you are asked to sign a
release know what rights you are signing away What are the ways you can scuttle your career - March 24th, 2008
H-1B Rules Set For Lottery - March 20th, 2008
Under the rule, the USCIS will prohibit companies
from filing multiple H-1B petitions for the same employee. These changes will
ensure that companies filing H-1B petitions subject to congressionally mandated
numerical limits have an equal chance to employ an H-1B worker, the agency said
in a statement. If caught, prospective employers
risk having all of their petitions for H-1B visas denied or revoked. There is an
exception, however. The rule does not preclude related employers, such as a
parent company and its subsidiary, from filing petitions on behalf of the same
worker for different positions, based on a legitimate
need. Research Finds MBA Nearly Doubles Salary Outlook for IT - March 18th, 2008
On average, in dollar terms (deflated to 1999
figures), IT professionals with MBAs earn more than $24,000 per year than those
with only bachelorÂ’s degrees and more than $17,000 per year than those with
other masterÂ’s degrees after controlling for a variety of demographic and
institutional factors. Only 31.4% of All CIOs report to the CEO - March 17th, 2008
Is that a reflection of thier membership or the real
world? One thing that was not included was a full job description for the
role of CIO. Many individuals say they are CIOs, but are they really?
eJobDescription.com has a
full job descripition in its Internet and
Information Technology HandiGuide - 2008 which has just been
updated to meet all of the compliance requirements mandated by
Sarbanes-Oxley, Federal requirments, and the new ISO 27001 Secruity
Requirements Standard. The top skill demanded by CIOs and CTOs for thier staff - March 6th, 2008
There
is a wide gap between the information technology (IT) security skills that
organizations want and the corresponding skills that workers bring to the job,
according to a new survey commissioned by the Computing Technology Industry
Association (CompTIA). Add
to that, despite worries of a recession, about one in five CIOs at larger firms
expect to hire new workers in the second quarter, according to new
research. Robert
Half TechnologyÂ’s new hiring survey finds that while the vast majority of
businesses expect IT staffing to remain stagnant next quarter, a net of 12
percent say they will add workers. That
gain represents a slight uptick from this quarterÂ’s projected hiring levels but
holds firm with the second quarter of 2007. Companies with more than 1,000
employees foresee the greatest hiring increases, with a projected net rise of 19
percent. The
uptick, regardless of how small or large, may surprise those who think the
economic downturn will ultimately cause staff cuts. But with plenty of companies
seeing positive signs, an increase in hiring should not come as a
shock. Security
tops the list of the technology skills that are most important to organizations
today, according to the survey of more than 3,500 technology professionals in
North America, Europe and Asia. But there is a significant gap in the security
skills available among today's tech workforce, the survey
reveals. Among
organizations surveyed in nine countries with established IT industries
(Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, United
Kingdom, and United States), 73 percent identified security, firewalls and data
privacy as the IT skills most important to their organization today. But just 57
percent said their IT employees are proficient in these security skills, a gap
of 16 percentage points. The
gap is even wider in five countries where the emergence of a strong IT industry
is relatively recent (China, India, Poland, Russia, and South Africa). Among
respondents in these countries, 76 percent identified security as the top skill
their organization needs; but just 57 percent said their current tech staff is
proficient in security. That's a difference of 19 percentage
points. Summary
results of the study are as follow:
Skills Important
Proficient Security/Firewall/Data
Privacy 74% 54% Networking
/ Network Infrastructue 66% 59% Operating
Systems 66% 65% Hardware 57% 60% Server
Technology 57% 49% Management
/People Skiles 56% 45% Application
Development 54% 47% Specific
Programming Languages 50% 40% Web
Technologies 40% 34% RF
Mobile/Wireless 27% 26% Traits of an Effective CIO and CTO Leader - March 5th, 2008
If any of these suggestions rings true to you, then go take a course on
leadership. Have your management style evaluated. Hire a consultant to
understand the effect it has on your customers, company, and team. You will
probably be surprised at what you
learn. Your Job is at Risk - Eight Signs - March 2nd, 2008
With the economy
in recession do you see signs that you show you that your job as the CIO or key
IP Prof is at risk. There are
several signs that you should be aware of.
They are: 1.
Marginalization by
management – You
are bypassed for promotions and assignments that you would like to have. The level of marginalization is greater
if those junior to you in seniority or lower than you in rank than if your peers
are offered these opportunities.
2.
Professional growth is stopped or
stalled – You are
the expert in yesterdayÂ’s technology and are not learning new things either as
a manager or as a technologist. 3.
IT is not part of the big
picture – The
strategic direction of the enterprise doew not include IT as a key
component. In essence IT is a cost
center. 4.
Key decisions and strategic
directions exclude you - Both formal and informal meetings on new
business decisions are held without you. 5.
Your role as a power source is waning
– Over time you
as the CIO or top IT professional
is no longer seen as someone that has to be brought around and persuaded by
others within the business 6.
CIO role is not fun – It is no longer a joy to do the
job, it is tedious and you are looking over your
shoulder. 7.
IT Service Management is not a
business focus –
The role you play as CIO is not perceived as one of helping the business
succeed. 8.
You are happy when a recruiter calls
– When a recruiter
calls you take more time to listen a learn about greener
pastures. Silicon Valley Loses Jobs - February 28th, 2008
(eWeek) - The effects of a sub-prime mortgage crisis,
financial market volatility and a shifting global economy are disproportionately
affecting midwage technology workers in Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, the percentage of higher wage jobs
remained relatively stable at 26 to 27 percent, while low-wage jobs grew from 22
to 27 percent in the same period. However, the picture is more complicated than a
depleted middle class. The regions 541,300 midwage jobs were distributed across
523 occupations in 2006, half of which lost and half of which gained jobs. The
vanishing jobs had been among workers who had been in the lowest parts of the
white-collar work force, including secretaries, clerks and customer service
representatives. Meanwhile, blue-collar roles such as electricians and plumbers
and white-collar jobs such as computer support technicians showed gains.
Globalization has forced companies to compete in a
new and different ways, to be dynamic, flexible, lean. You would have once
start a company and hoped it would grow, become a GM. But the new model is
driven by different regions with different cost structures and startup activity
and they are very lean and flexible. Companies are getting smaller,
focusing on core competencies and they're not generating midrange jobs as
much. Back-office jobs are expected to continue to be
contracted out, while high-end work such as research, design and intellectual
property are likely to continue to flourish in the region. Still, the overall picture of Silicon Valley is a
healthy one. The population in the region grew 1.5 percent in the past year; it
added 28,000 jobs at a time when overall employment growth slowed in the rest of
the country; and the region continued to increase its share of U.S. patents,
with 47 percent of those granted in California and 12 percent of those in the
nation coming out of the region. According the report, the Valley has also
diversified. Previous innovators in the region were single technologies,
transistors, semiconductors, the circuit and the PC, one dimensional when
compared to today's relatively diversified portfolio, with IT at its center.
Layoffs Continue in the Technology Arena - February 28th, 2008
Revenue in the fourth quarter was $3.2 billion, down
4% year over year, the company said in a statement. Full-year 2007 revenue was $10.95 billion, also down 4%. Analysts expected revenue to come in at $3.28 billion
for the quarter. Nortel blamed lower-than-expected carrier spending in North America for the
revenue shortfall in the fourth quarter. Excluding the effect of the divestiture of its UMTS
Access business, revenue would have increased 2% in the quarter and the year,
Nortel said. Toronto-based Nortel also posted a net loss of $844
million for the fourth quarter, and $957 million for the year, because of a $1.1
billion noncash charge the company took as a result of changes in Nortel's
Canadian tax profile. This compares with a net loss of $80 million in the fourth
quarter of 2006 and a profit of $28 million for fiscal
2006. Yahoo Gives Key Employees a Golden Parachute - February 21st, 2008
In its 8K filing with the SEC Yahoo disclosed the
golden parchaute program they have for key employees.
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