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There’s no better example of a dynamic, fast-growing field than IT support Is this why IBM, DXC et al are laying off Western workers like it’s going out of fas
by gaius 9y ago
There’s no better example of a dynamic, fast-growing field than IT support
Is this why IBM, DXC et al are laying off Western workers like it’s going out of fashion and offshoring those jobs as fast as they possibly can?
- blakesterz 9y agoI thought I just read about layoffs in all the big support centers in India? Are those similar jobs? Where is IBM, DXC et. al. sending the jobs or is that all just unrelated or my bad memory? For some reason I thought the general trend lately was many Western countries were bringing support jobs back to their own countries.
- geodel 9y agoIMO the reduction of workforce IT / Software related field is worldwide. Now place I work is hiring whole bunch of people but just on basis of that I wouldn't say in general is industry is creating whole lot of jobs. I think going forward the hiring would be at best replacing people who joined in 80s in case those jobs are not totally automated away.
- ams6110 9y agoYou can't really offshore swapping out a defective network cable or replacing a hard drive. I haven't looked at how they define an "IT Support Professional" but I'm assuming it's not just answering a phone and following a decision tree and saying "I'm very sorry to hear that you are still experiencing a problem" before each step. Anyone can do that with almost no training.
- Kephael 9y agoSure you can, just move most of your computing resources to the cloud and let Amazon manage hardware maintenance.
- sigstoat 9y agooffice workers still have computing devices on their desks, keyboards monitors, mice, printers, label printers, scanners, voip phones, switches, routers, access points, sip callboxes on the doors, projectors, access control systems, etc. maybe the office will finally go paperless this decade, and a couple of those will go away. they'll just be some new IoT fuckery to contend with.
- PascLeRasc 9y agoLet's also not forget that Windows 10 will keep a lot of people employed locally to issue BIOS patches and diagnose BSODs.
- gaius 9y agoAn office of freelancers with their own laptops using GMail, deploying an app to GKE, writing Google Docs, etc needs a barista before they need an IT Support person, and Google perfectly well knows this, because this is the world they are striving to create! Or Azure or AWS I just mention Google stuff because this is their thing
- cube00 9y agoOf course you can, enterprises are already starting to push "bring your own device". Even if you don't do that, you can still move to the thin client model where hardware failure just means asking the office manager to swap your device with a new one from the cupboard.
- icebraining 9y agoBYOD doesn't do away with the problem because the users don't know how to fix them themselves, so they'll still need someone, even if it's a tech at the mall rather than in their office.
- JoblessWonder 9y agoBYOD leads to device management, which leads to IT job security.
- gscott 9y agoYou on-shore it by hiring H1B visa workers to replace the American ones (example is Disney).
- neil_s 9y agoFTA: "In the United States alone, there are currently 150,000 open IT support jobs" This program was literally started so Google could provide tech support to its employees. A highly technical group with access to a leading public cloud. None of that does away with the need to provide IT support.
- gaius 9y agoThat is a ludicrously high number. Are there entire companies, entire offices, staring out of the window waiting for someone to do some IT? Or are they managing and sure an IT guy/gal would be nice to have, but no big deal to do without?
- geodel 9y agoI think number looks okay in terms of posting. One thing people wrongly assume that companies putting these openings do actually want to fill them all or even any significant number.