Having been a technology search professional for more than thirty years, I've been trying to look for signals that the employment recession was beginning to end. For ayear now, the dominant labor market (if you want to call it that) in the New York area has been for fulltime staff level technical professionals. People who do stuff, not people who manage. There were support jobs on Wall Street; there were development jobs in other industries. In general, the market was for staff level professionals. The supply far exceeded demand.This month for the first time since 9/11/02, I'm starting to hear about project management, project office and quality assurance positions.

Why does this mean that we're entering a new phase? Simple. These are roles that organizations staff for why they are starting new projects. You hire for a program or project office if you are trying to manage resources when you take on new projects. You don't need to hire project managers if you're in maintenance mode. You start taking on new ones when you're beginning new efforts. Lastly you only hire quality assurance people when you're testing new work.

On the other hand, if you look at the trend to outsource offshore (the article below sites a study indiating that US financial services companies are planning to shift 500,000 jobs overseas in the next five years) and add that to another 500000 technology jobs lost in the US over the past two years and the US recovery looks like it will be slow and that there will be continued wage deflation.

This is different than complaints about the H1B program and its impact upon US jobs. Frankly, I believe the complaints are misdirected. Information technology jobs are becoming no different than textile jobs in the scheme of the economy. work can be done effectively in India and elsewhere at costs far lower than in the US and given the trends, it is important to do your career planning in light of the global economy and how it will be affected by this shift.