US tech jobs losses and moving up the value chain
Tech
Written by Charles F. Moreira   
Friday, 30 January 2009 12:16
There’s certainly been much said recently about all the doom and gloom over the collapse of the United States financial and securities industries, home foreclosures, the likely collapse of its automobile industry, cutbacks and retrenchments in individual companies across different industries,.

However, little has been said about the overall health of the US technology industry until we came across a SG/HAR report dated 30 January, 2008 on the Iranian news portal, PressTV.IR www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=84109§ionid=3510203 saying that US telecommunications, computer and electronics firms had altogether shed 186,955 jobs in 2008, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CG&C).

CG&C said that this is the highest number of annual jobs lost in five years and that the 2008 figure represents a 74.2% jump in technology jobs lost over the previous year, and the largest annual drop since the 228,325 jobs lost in 2003.

The rate of technology jumped by 167% in the second half of 2008 as the economy deteriorated.

“If  January is any indication, job losses can be expected to remain heavy well into 2009," CG&C said.

Job cuts in the electronics sector leaped by 89.7% in 2008 over 2007 to 73,447 jobs lost last year, while the telecommunications sector chopped 48,648 jobs in 2008, which is 72.5% up on 2007,  and the computer industry chopped 64,860 jobs last year, up 61.3% over 2007.
 
"Cuts could reach even higher in 2009, as there is no evidence yet that the economy has hit the bottom of this downward portion of the cycle," CG&C added.

However, US tech workers can consider themselves lucky, since close to 187,000 jobs lost in their sector in 2008 is small compared to the 2.6 million jobs lost overall in the US last year, with tech jobs lost representing about 7.19% of jobs lost overall.

The significant point is that 1.9 million jobs were lost across all US sectors in the last four months of 2008, which represents a very steep increase in the rate of jobs lost, which several media and analysts expect to continue into 2009.

Urgent need to move up the value chain

So United States technology workers, well all workers in fact, must constantly upgrade themselves so that they will fit into the well-paying opportunities higher up the skills chain, where they can earn much higher pay and enjoy a better life and their loss of their jobs is their fault for not doing so, even if there are fewer opportunities the further one goes up the value pyramid.

It’s much like the smaller and smaller liveable land area the higher people moves up a mountain to escape the rising flood waters, though building houseboats to live on is an option, which might explain why so many people are escaping into Cyberspace.

In fact, everyone in the United States should aspire to become a PhD and conduct research and development work, which will increase the overall productive wealth of the United States economy.

Instead of bailing out banks and financial institutions, the new administration of President Barack Obama must allocate an unlimited amount of grants to all US citizens and permanent residents to pursue their education up to PhD level and beyond and never mind wither the United States goes bankrupt as a result as the Federal Reserve can always print more fiat currency or more toilet paper – whichever is more valuable.

Whether there are enough jobs higher up the value pyramid to absorb that number of PhDs is another matter but at least you’ll have the privilege of having a PhD holder wait upon you in a restaurant in the US or serve you a latte in one of those production-line style chain cafes, with their globally uniform and sterile décor, look and feel, right down to counter staff speaking in pseudo-American accents.

It’s rather curious that such an ambiance is so attractive to techno-yuppie types who think themselves so individual and creative, while cherishing such uniformity and sterility.

Anyway, having a PhD wait on you surely would be a great tourist attraction, like those stories my late father told me about some Malayans in London (either shortly before or shortly after independence) wanting to have their picture taken while their shoes were being shined by a white-skinned shoe shine boy sitting on a low stool close to the ground.

That also reminds me of stories my late father told me about university graduates in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) driving horse carts and taxis when he visited his relations there before the Second World War, and the obsession with having a university degree over there was so great that even university dropouts would append titles such as, “BA failed” behind their names.
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