The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.
It has been a challenging time. Software professionals rode the IT wave till the end of 2000, as companies offered generous compensation packages. By the turn of the millennium, many became millionaires with newly acquired skills in Internet technology. But the dot-com bust and US tech sector meltdown happened in quick succession, resulting in the layoffs of droves of workers.
Impact on Skill Requirements
Telecom equipment maker Nortel Networks has benched 12,000 employees; chip giant Intel has cut 5,000 jobs; communications major Motorola has laid off 12,000 employees; and PC maker Compaq plans to lay off 4,000 employees in the next two months to reduce structural costs.
This downturn has left many techies in the lurch as the demand for their skills has suddenly slowed. The situation today is that yesterday’s most sought-after skills — HTML, VB scripting and Java — have become obsolete as companies move up the value chain to become “IT-enabled”.
If you look closely at this excruciating activity, you will find that the employees who bit the bullet comprise the first layer, those involved in coding, internetworking, dot-coms and less time-critical work. It’s a “here today, gone tomorrow” state of affairs. Often the first layer gets affected during a downturn.
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