Is the recession over?

In the last three days I've had three people call me up looking deperately to hire top notch programmers. Google wants to hire >20< in New York!

Now, I've never noticed top notch programmers going unemployed for long, even at the depths of the recession, but it's really starting to look like pent-up demand for programming talent is starting to bubble to the surface.

Anybody else notice the same thing or is it a blind man/elephant phenomenon here?

Joel Spolsky
Wednesday, April 2, 2003

I like to think we have passed the worst of it.  Our company has been seeing a gradual, cautious upturn over the past two quarters; capital spending has been up nationwide for longer than that.

Still,  a lot of business systems were replaced in advance of Y2K.  I am not sure there is a convincing reason to replace them yet.

Ran
Wednesday, April 2, 2003

I have noticed the similar things too. I have been receiving calls from recruiters after seeing my resume on Hotjobs.com. This was no biggie 2 years ago. And it's started happening again after 2 years of "dry period". And I know I am not a top notch programmer, just above average maybe.

Anon
Wednesday, April 2, 2003

Lots more alumni messages from people looking to hire people at the company they are currently working for... (one of the big iron cms places just today)

Michael H. Pryor
Wednesday, April 2, 2003

blind man/elephant phenomenon here?

What do u mean by this?

------------------------------------------------------

As far as the recession goes, I have been hearing different things.

This Monday we had Bloomberg on campus, they said they were looking to hire around 200 people for their tech dept. but the other financial firms do not want anything to do with tech guys(entry level – BS/MS/PhD)…

OTOH: I have been keeping track of rates for independent consultants, that seems to have taken a few kicks to the head..., rates have dropped by more than half the original in some cases.

Prakash S
Wednesday, April 2, 2003

My reasoning has been, no matter how bad a recession gets, good  companies will always need good people. Those contracts just can't wait to get off the floor. So you are good or great, don't worry so much. Many complaints that it is next to impossible to even line up a great talent with a good job. I mostly agree with them. So anyone here for migrating to China and India to open web services sweat shops? Flights really cheap now...

Li-fan Chen
Friday, April 4, 2003

I have 1.5 years experience doing J2EE work, and a BFA in Art Photography. My experience does include some pretty impressive clients, but I have had some pretty rough spots over the past year and I've never had anyone seek me out. This past week, I've had 3 companies contact me.

Anonymous
Sunday, April 6, 2003

Our company makes software for the heavy manufacturing sector. Lately we've had more and more people push off purchases until autumn/end of calendar year. From the people that I've talked to, there's been no improvement in the last year, and none in sight.

Spam
Friday, April 11, 2003

This was a scary article (New York Times, registration required):

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/13/magazine/13UNEMPLO
YED.html

Charles Lewis
Sunday, April 13, 2003

Not a chance.

It'll look better when we stop laying people off, let alone hiring anyone.

punter
Monday, April 14, 2003

Doug kass in TheStreet.com today (April 23): 

<<While the technology markets might've stabilized, they've done so at very low levels. Prospects for growth in 2003 remain subdued as U.S. industry is still reticent to commit to information technology projects in the face of still-low capacity utilization rates and the financial disarray in the IT user community.>>

I think this is a good summary of where we are.

Ran
Wednesday, April 23, 2003

According to the Times (although yesterday we learned that they may not always be so reliable) Google is actually hiring *100* engineers in NYC.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/12/technology/12GOOG.html

billm
Monday, May 12, 2003

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