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Current News

09/03/2008 Job Market Continues to soften -
In an Associated Press story it was stated that job cuts announced by U.S. employers last month jumped 12 percent over a year ago to cap the busiest summer of downsizing in six years. The monthly job reductions slowed somewhat from July but still exceeded the year-ago figure for a seventh time in 2008. Employers announced plans to reduce their work forces by 88,736 jobs in August Â— 14 percent fewer than the 103,312 job cuts announced in July but 12 percent more than the 79,459 recorded in August 2007.

This in agrees with the data that Janco has collected.
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08/31/2008 What You Should Do To Prepare If You May be Layed Off -
When you hear that your company may be outsourcing, laying people off, or you feel you may be losing your job there are some things that you can do to get ready before that happens and others that you can do once it happens to ease your pain.

Document what is happening and what your benefits should be

Relax and get yourself in a good frame of mind

Review all of your employment records including job offer and performance reviews to know your rights

Update your resume

Expand your skill set via any training that is available to you

Review your professional networks contract information and keep a copy at home

Review your spending and saving situation and know what the impact of losing your job would be

Utilize your existing insurance programs and do medical / dental work quickly and know what insurance options such as COBRA you will have if you lose your job

Put out feelers to see what other opportunities you have, use internet job boards to measure market conditions

Know you strengths and weaknesses and begin to prepare for the interview

Re-establish your contacts with recruiters

Keep good records on all efforts you place in the Â“potentialÂ” job hunt

Be proactive
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08/29/2008 Over 80% of IT Professionals Lose Jobs When Companies Outsource -
Janco Associates has just completed an analysis of over 75 companies within the US that have outsourced their IT functions to see what the impact was on the IT Job Market. The major finding was that just under 20% of the IT professionals remained with the company in some capacity and in some cases at a lower salary.

The actual percentages were 71.63% - Laid off; 8,65% - Quit within 90 days of the outsourcing; and 19.72% - Remained with the company at least 90 days after outsourcing.

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08/27/2008 Non-Compete Clauses Ruled Invalid in California -
(cNet) - The California Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a state law ruling that employers cannot restrict employees from working for a competitor or soliciting former clients when they leave the company.

That may be good news for California-based tech employees who want to take their skills to another company, or head a start-up that may directly compete with their former employer. "Noncompete" contracts, in place largely to protect an employer's intellectual property, began being used by companies during the dot-com boom to prevent losing valuable workers in a competitive technology labor market.

The California law has been in existence since 1872, forbidding "noncompete clauses" that restrict management employees' options in their next job or business. But the law has been interpreted differently throughout the state, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has ruled in favor of allowing a company to limit their employees' future job choices, as long as it doesn't prevent them from working in the same field.

Thursday's ruling was a response to the Edwards vs. Arthur Andersen case, stating clearly that Edwards, a tax manager, signed an invalid noncompete clause. The court said in its final disposition (see PDF) that "Non-competition agreements are invalid...in California even if narrowly drawn."
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08/22/2008 Things That You do Not Want to Say to Your Management or Users -
There is no documentation on the application (code) - When a program fails at a critical point in time and the error is investigated you find there is no documentation of what the code does, how it impacts other applications, and the programmer who wrote the code cannot be identified or is no longer with your enterprise.

No application relationship diagram is available Â– When it is time to upgrade or change and you find that there is no application interface definition nor is there any documentation which tells you how the application interfaces with all of the other applications within the enterprise.

Key employee is actively seeking a new job or looking to retire Â– Out of 100 IT employees 22 change jobs within each 12 months. Add to that the fact that between 20 to 30% of "legacy" system experts are going to retire within the next 5 years and you have another issue the CIO needs to address.

Users and the CIO want an application and you cannot document the ROI Â– Pressure is placed on you to build the business case for a new application or an enhancement to an existing one and you cannot prove that it meets the enterpriseÂ’s ROI threshold.

You do not know what the CIOÂ’s vision is Â– You are in a meeting with users and the CIO and say something that shows that you are not on the same page as the CIO.
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