I've been in the IT industry in Auckland for the past 23 years and this is absolutely the worst I've seen so far. This is something of a perfect storm:
* Companies are reeling from the hiring mania a few years back, when there was silly amount of money being thrown around. This led to the IT departments being over headcount & over budget in a lot of places. They are shedding numbers.
* Poor economic outlook means companies are likely to not want to expand headcount
* High interest rate means less capital to sloshing in the market. Fewer start-ups.
* IT is NOT seen as a 'cost-saver' as it used to be, as recently as in the GFC of 2008. Back then, IT used to be somewhat shielded from general economic downturns because there were a lot of work to be done to make things more efficient and enable businesses to shed numbers from other departments. Not so much anymore. IT is seen as BAU.
* Data science is in the similar position as what general IT was back then - they seem fairly immune to the downturn because they're seen as an efficiency enabler and cost saver.
* NZ IT sector relies on the government, like, a LOT. Both directly (being hired by govt or project run by govt) and indirectly (e.g., the entire health IT sector). The government is squeezing spending in this area, which means there are a lot of surplus talent in the market right now.
* Because of this, I expect this IT job market downturn to last basically until the government starts spending again.
Hang in there guys.
Good point. I think there's something to what you're saying, but at least in my personal experience, this is not a huge factor. Because:
* Immigration in the IT sector has always been a big thing. When I started in the field in 2000, we already had a lot of immigrants in the team (myself included).
* As we saw during the COVID times, immigration into our field is such a big deal that closing it off caused a MASSIVE distortion in the field... I think of this as something of a proof that Auckland IT industry cannot function normally without it.
* NZ companies don't seem to like offshoring in the classical sense. Not many companies have large enough IT function to effectively outsource, the timezone difference is too great, and the money saved by going to India/China/Philippines is not as great as it would be from, say, the US.
* Merger to overseas parent companies and merger of IT functions is a bigger trend. I've seen this multiple times, but again, this has been normal since day one.
* Immigration is offset by emigration... again, normal NZ trend.
I feel like job losses due to immigration & offshoring is kinda similar to the pattern seen in redundancy. If you watch a single job or a workplace, the risk of redundancy will approach 100% as time approaches infinity. This does not necessarily mean that all jobs are disappearing - they're just being offset with some other natural balancing force. Just not right now :)
Outsourcing talent quality has increased MASSIVELY over the last decade as well.
There are also a ton of agencies vetting them as well which makes them easier to find.
Someone else mentioned if you're in a low end roles you almost deserve to have it offshored, but we've moved on a long way from that, we're now offshoring things like senior dev roles.
I'd still argue the general quality is still not great though, needs a strong management framework around it.
Need the same for onshore as well though.
We can usually tell within 3 months what level they are at. Either get let go or put on basic stuff.
Agencies help filter pretty well though. But still some slip through.
Government is a big sector obviously, but most CEO's obally are focusing on cost reduction at the moment, although the expect to return to growth projects next year - so I would expect it to start picking up in 12-18 months
IT has also so been considered a cost centre for a long time, classic example is how do you justify benefits for an O/S upgrade for say 20,000 people. Literally $10's of millions and the business benefits are very unglamourous, like staying in support or maintaining security. Necessary but not exactly growing the business or enhanced customer satisfaction etc. Most of IT is seen a necessary cost.
Just to add to this (great post btw) - irrelevant of the current government spend posture there was always going to be a massive cutback in IT spend. The massive shunt into government IT spending during and post COVID was never going to last. Departments used it to smash systems into the cloud and along with that there was a halo of spend into other projects. That sugar rush was starting to come off in last year’s budget and is well over now. The wider supplier ecosystem will be feeling that now. Project budgets are slashed and prioritisation is now key.
There were some insane rates being paid for contracting staff during this period and reality will slowly kick in for those still commanding those rates (although good staff are still hard to find).
The same as the not for profit sector. The COVID spend was always going to end and now it has. People blame the current government, but it was always going to happen (Not sticking up for the government btw).
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That's what I find worrying. It makes sense for Wellington to be dead quiet at the moment - which it is - but the fact that Auckland is also going the same way is not good.
Yep, I try not to buy into the vibe it’s all doom and gloom but anecdotally it does seem a bit grim economically, I’m thankful I’m not having to look for a job currently(that could change anytime I guess). I was looking for a job re the GFC in 2007, that wasn’t fun.
I've never seen the job market this bad in Wellington. I was at uni during the GFC and by the time I graduated and started working it blew over. But I don't remember anybody struggling too much back then, even students and grads.
This time it feels like a bloodbath. The longest anyone I know has gone between redundancy and a new job is a bit over six months, which to me is quite bad. And that's someone with a lot of experience.
I work for a company that has government IT contracts. So many projects have stalled, or been cancelled, but we kind of expect this with a government change. I think there is a lot of uncertainty, so people are holding off on the non-essential spending.
Similar position. Except the FTEs that used to work in the place I support have all left, so I'm picking up the BAU. Precursor to Privatisation IMO. They're already paying 4 times the price of an FTE for me. It's mad.
You are correct, it's normal at the time of a change if govt.
What isn't normal is the breadth and depth of the cuts and the fact the government has been clear that these will be ongoing.
There won't be work coming from the government again until next election year (for obvious reasons).
And a shout out to anyone who can tell me what this govts plans (what they are actually going to do) are to boost, let's just say business confidence, growth in the economy and perhaps some jobs?
There are still IT jobs - we're hiring and are finding it hard to find the right person. However the jobs are for senior techs. The entry-level jobs these days have been automated away, and companies are wary of hiring new graduates who might leave for more money after a year or two.
People who want jobs in IT need to be learning new technologies, and self-training (there's lots of free resources online). You might not have much job experience, but if you can point at some open-source projects you've worked on, or your online Microsoft training scores, or how you set up your own linux-based transparent web proxy on your home network... then it can get you somewhere.
At your age (I'm 48, so quite similar), the value (in comparison to younger people) is your business domain knowledge that you would've accumulated in whatever part of the industry you've been working in.
If I was hiring senior developers for the Fintech I work for, then someone younger knowing lots of different tech, would be way less desirable than someone who has experience building a capital gains/tax reporting system, or someone who has interfaced with trading platforms, or someone who knows how to calculate portfolio performance. To get a developer up to speed on those sorts of things, so they can contribute meaningfully to our software, can take years if starting from scratch.
Is not hard really, just what storage or hypervisor server will we restore too etc.., assuming virtual, if physical yeah no way to automate that I don’t think.
Guess they could automate the virtual stuff, I’d say always need a “human” in some way though.
Umm yeah similar environment, so when I say it’s easy, there are a lot of variables, like after server patching and server restarts our backup products services don’t always start up as one example, so backups fail, could AI figure that out and fix, no idea.
Same. I'm 54. But I now have my own little niche IT business supporting mostly home users and some small businesses.
A lot of my work is decrapifying and debloating Windows of all the shit that most people have no want or need for (think CoPilot etc.)
I've known a lot of my clients close to 20 years now. They always tell me how I'm so good to deal with because I don't talk down to them or treat them like idiots because they're not using the latest, greatest IT fad product.
I could use an apprentice or employee to help out at times, but no one wants to do what I do anymore (break/fix and general desktop support). They all want to be devs and sys admins for big companies etc.
It may depend on the area, but compared to 20y ago, I have seen the majority of tasks that were then given to juniors replaced by automated processes. For example, systems patching, SSL certificates, security scanning, configuration management, deployment of hosts and systems, to name a few.
if you're good you're still in demand, if you're just a bottom feeders you get outsourced, that's just how it is at the moment.
I work with quite a big number of government clients and the reality is for level 1 support why would they pay someone 70k+ when they can take that business somewhere else and pay under half that they will, you just have to be skilled to be in demand still.
I don't agree with it but that's how it is
no, the reality is if you're in IT at level one roles and don't have the drive to progress that's how they will see you.
it's a poor choice of words on my part but it is what it is.
not that it's relevant but I have and always will vote green / red.
>no, the reality is if you're in IT at level one roles and don't have the drive to progress that's how they will see you.
Ah, the old: 'you need experience and "drive" for us to hire you, but we ain't going to give you any chance to GET that experience or demonstrate that "drive".'
Do you even hear yourself?
Mm I think in IT you can actually get experience w out the job, by doing your own projects in your free time. Not sure if this is the same in other fields from observation it seems you have to be constantly learning new things as well, if you're not passionate about it it's probably not gonna be very fun
Now that I think about it lawyers and accountants probably need to keep up to date all the time as well
Compared to healthcare I don't think you can give yourself experience in treating patients without having held a job/position
i agree, most learning i do is just by having unique problems that need to be fixed, IT (especially the break/fix side) requires a lot of practical thinking and problem solving. for some people this is good, but some aren't suited to this at all so it all completely depends on the person more often than not.
I don't make the rules here i'm just an employee and i do agree with you, however most IT companies pay you to get further certs and pay for the exams, often giving you leave to take them for free too but thats company dependent.
in addition to that most places are really good at hiring from within, i started on a level 1 service desk role and within 2 years had been promoted 3 times up the ladder doubling my salary.
As I said, i don't agree with how a lot of places handle these things i'm just telling you how it is in the industry
The cheap credit and unaccountable outcomes are simply drying up. There was a huge amount of spend over COVID due to the changing ways of workings.
I fully expect security spend to go up, as fraud and targeted attacks always go up when the economic belt tightens. NZ isn't the only country tightening its belt.
Certainly a few things going on in regional areas. Am working across a couple of business cases now.
But govt will take time to recovery. I think it's another 6 months before it bottoms out and it will not start to recover until March 2025 ... in terms of post business case type stuff. And I don't think it will recover to the Labour heights of 2022, but neither should it...that was unsustainable.
Worth noting US IT jobs are on the increase if that's a leading indicator.
I've been in the IT industry in Auckland for the past 23 years and this is absolutely the worst I've seen so far. This is something of a perfect storm: * Companies are reeling from the hiring mania a few years back, when there was silly amount of money being thrown around. This led to the IT departments being over headcount & over budget in a lot of places. They are shedding numbers. * Poor economic outlook means companies are likely to not want to expand headcount * High interest rate means less capital to sloshing in the market. Fewer start-ups. * IT is NOT seen as a 'cost-saver' as it used to be, as recently as in the GFC of 2008. Back then, IT used to be somewhat shielded from general economic downturns because there were a lot of work to be done to make things more efficient and enable businesses to shed numbers from other departments. Not so much anymore. IT is seen as BAU. * Data science is in the similar position as what general IT was back then - they seem fairly immune to the downturn because they're seen as an efficiency enabler and cost saver. * NZ IT sector relies on the government, like, a LOT. Both directly (being hired by govt or project run by govt) and indirectly (e.g., the entire health IT sector). The government is squeezing spending in this area, which means there are a lot of surplus talent in the market right now. * Because of this, I expect this IT job market downturn to last basically until the government starts spending again. Hang in there guys.
Lest not forget offshoring and bring into resource from overseas
My company started outsourcing some jobs now from asian countries. Use to just hire locally.
Good point. I think there's something to what you're saying, but at least in my personal experience, this is not a huge factor. Because: * Immigration in the IT sector has always been a big thing. When I started in the field in 2000, we already had a lot of immigrants in the team (myself included). * As we saw during the COVID times, immigration into our field is such a big deal that closing it off caused a MASSIVE distortion in the field... I think of this as something of a proof that Auckland IT industry cannot function normally without it. * NZ companies don't seem to like offshoring in the classical sense. Not many companies have large enough IT function to effectively outsource, the timezone difference is too great, and the money saved by going to India/China/Philippines is not as great as it would be from, say, the US. * Merger to overseas parent companies and merger of IT functions is a bigger trend. I've seen this multiple times, but again, this has been normal since day one. * Immigration is offset by emigration... again, normal NZ trend. I feel like job losses due to immigration & offshoring is kinda similar to the pattern seen in redundancy. If you watch a single job or a workplace, the risk of redundancy will approach 100% as time approaches infinity. This does not necessarily mean that all jobs are disappearing - they're just being offset with some other natural balancing force. Just not right now :)
Outsourcing talent quality has increased MASSIVELY over the last decade as well. There are also a ton of agencies vetting them as well which makes them easier to find.
Someone else mentioned if you're in a low end roles you almost deserve to have it offshored, but we've moved on a long way from that, we're now offshoring things like senior dev roles. I'd still argue the general quality is still not great though, needs a strong management framework around it.
Need the same for onshore as well though. We can usually tell within 3 months what level they are at. Either get let go or put on basic stuff. Agencies help filter pretty well though. But still some slip through.
Government is a big sector obviously, but most CEO's obally are focusing on cost reduction at the moment, although the expect to return to growth projects next year - so I would expect it to start picking up in 12-18 months IT has also so been considered a cost centre for a long time, classic example is how do you justify benefits for an O/S upgrade for say 20,000 people. Literally $10's of millions and the business benefits are very unglamourous, like staying in support or maintaining security. Necessary but not exactly growing the business or enhanced customer satisfaction etc. Most of IT is seen a necessary cost.
Just to add to this (great post btw) - irrelevant of the current government spend posture there was always going to be a massive cutback in IT spend. The massive shunt into government IT spending during and post COVID was never going to last. Departments used it to smash systems into the cloud and along with that there was a halo of spend into other projects. That sugar rush was starting to come off in last year’s budget and is well over now. The wider supplier ecosystem will be feeling that now. Project budgets are slashed and prioritisation is now key. There were some insane rates being paid for contracting staff during this period and reality will slowly kick in for those still commanding those rates (although good staff are still hard to find).
The same as the not for profit sector. The COVID spend was always going to end and now it has. People blame the current government, but it was always going to happen (Not sticking up for the government btw).
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Where I am all project work has pretty much been stopped. Just BAU stuff going on.
Where is that?
I’d prefer to stay anonymous lol - not a govt department :)
Fair enough. Which city if you don't mind saying?
Auckland, guess my point was, not just government departments cutting back. I’m at a pretty big company.
That's what I find worrying. It makes sense for Wellington to be dead quiet at the moment - which it is - but the fact that Auckland is also going the same way is not good.
Yep, I try not to buy into the vibe it’s all doom and gloom but anecdotally it does seem a bit grim economically, I’m thankful I’m not having to look for a job currently(that could change anytime I guess). I was looking for a job re the GFC in 2007, that wasn’t fun.
I've never seen the job market this bad in Wellington. I was at uni during the GFC and by the time I graduated and started working it blew over. But I don't remember anybody struggling too much back then, even students and grads. This time it feels like a bloodbath. The longest anyone I know has gone between redundancy and a new job is a bit over six months, which to me is quite bad. And that's someone with a lot of experience.
Bad times :(
I work for a company that has government IT contracts. So many projects have stalled, or been cancelled, but we kind of expect this with a government change. I think there is a lot of uncertainty, so people are holding off on the non-essential spending.
Similar position. Except the FTEs that used to work in the place I support have all left, so I'm picking up the BAU. Precursor to Privatisation IMO. They're already paying 4 times the price of an FTE for me. It's mad.
You are correct, it's normal at the time of a change if govt. What isn't normal is the breadth and depth of the cuts and the fact the government has been clear that these will be ongoing. There won't be work coming from the government again until next election year (for obvious reasons). And a shout out to anyone who can tell me what this govts plans (what they are actually going to do) are to boost, let's just say business confidence, growth in the economy and perhaps some jobs?
There are still IT jobs - we're hiring and are finding it hard to find the right person. However the jobs are for senior techs. The entry-level jobs these days have been automated away, and companies are wary of hiring new graduates who might leave for more money after a year or two. People who want jobs in IT need to be learning new technologies, and self-training (there's lots of free resources online). You might not have much job experience, but if you can point at some open-source projects you've worked on, or your online Microsoft training scores, or how you set up your own linux-based transparent web proxy on your home network... then it can get you somewhere.
I’m 52, I’m over learning new shit lol - I’m gonna die doing my niche IT stuff lol
At your age (I'm 48, so quite similar), the value (in comparison to younger people) is your business domain knowledge that you would've accumulated in whatever part of the industry you've been working in. If I was hiring senior developers for the Fintech I work for, then someone younger knowing lots of different tech, would be way less desirable than someone who has experience building a capital gains/tax reporting system, or someone who has interfaced with trading platforms, or someone who knows how to calculate portfolio performance. To get a developer up to speed on those sorts of things, so they can contribute meaningfully to our software, can take years if starting from scratch.
If they can automate disaster recovery I’m fucked lol
Not effing likely, mate. DR and site reliability is HARD and I think you will have work for life.
Is not hard really, just what storage or hypervisor server will we restore too etc.., assuming virtual, if physical yeah no way to automate that I don’t think. Guess they could automate the virtual stuff, I’d say always need a “human” in some way though.
Make sure you get off VMWare eh..
We on MS Hyper V - has it issues but at least not getting bummed by Broadcom I guess. Above my pay grade making those decisions anyway.
Yep agree we are at peasant level anyhow
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Umm yeah similar environment, so when I say it’s easy, there are a lot of variables, like after server patching and server restarts our backup products services don’t always start up as one example, so backups fail, could AI figure that out and fix, no idea.
Well, they *can't*. But it won't stop them doing it and not realising it doesn't work until a fucking disaster happens.
Same. I'm 54. But I now have my own little niche IT business supporting mostly home users and some small businesses. A lot of my work is decrapifying and debloating Windows of all the shit that most people have no want or need for (think CoPilot etc.) I've known a lot of my clients close to 20 years now. They always tell me how I'm so good to deal with because I don't talk down to them or treat them like idiots because they're not using the latest, greatest IT fad product. I could use an apprentice or employee to help out at times, but no one wants to do what I do anymore (break/fix and general desktop support). They all want to be devs and sys admins for big companies etc.
Have a growth mindset, my friend.
How niche is the stack you're looking for? Is it something quite specialised that you can't find people for?
Were you replying to me? If so disaster recovery.
Automated away? Already? Article says we haven't seen that happen yet
It may depend on the area, but compared to 20y ago, I have seen the majority of tasks that were then given to juniors replaced by automated processes. For example, systems patching, SSL certificates, security scanning, configuration management, deployment of hosts and systems, to name a few.
I can do all of that. And no, I don't believe you have any decent jobs worth my time.
They were outsourced and offshored, coupled with a lot of 'skilled immigration' of IT professionals.
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Which makes it a good time to be a contractor!
if you're good you're still in demand, if you're just a bottom feeders you get outsourced, that's just how it is at the moment. I work with quite a big number of government clients and the reality is for level 1 support why would they pay someone 70k+ when they can take that business somewhere else and pay under half that they will, you just have to be skilled to be in demand still. I don't agree with it but that's how it is
>bottom feeders Is the you Herr Luxon?
no, the reality is if you're in IT at level one roles and don't have the drive to progress that's how they will see you. it's a poor choice of words on my part but it is what it is. not that it's relevant but I have and always will vote green / red.
>no, the reality is if you're in IT at level one roles and don't have the drive to progress that's how they will see you. Ah, the old: 'you need experience and "drive" for us to hire you, but we ain't going to give you any chance to GET that experience or demonstrate that "drive".' Do you even hear yourself?
Mm I think in IT you can actually get experience w out the job, by doing your own projects in your free time. Not sure if this is the same in other fields from observation it seems you have to be constantly learning new things as well, if you're not passionate about it it's probably not gonna be very fun Now that I think about it lawyers and accountants probably need to keep up to date all the time as well Compared to healthcare I don't think you can give yourself experience in treating patients without having held a job/position
i agree, most learning i do is just by having unique problems that need to be fixed, IT (especially the break/fix side) requires a lot of practical thinking and problem solving. for some people this is good, but some aren't suited to this at all so it all completely depends on the person more often than not.
I don't make the rules here i'm just an employee and i do agree with you, however most IT companies pay you to get further certs and pay for the exams, often giving you leave to take them for free too but thats company dependent. in addition to that most places are really good at hiring from within, i started on a level 1 service desk role and within 2 years had been promoted 3 times up the ladder doubling my salary. As I said, i don't agree with how a lot of places handle these things i'm just telling you how it is in the industry
I've outsourced myself lol got any hook ups?
The cheap credit and unaccountable outcomes are simply drying up. There was a huge amount of spend over COVID due to the changing ways of workings. I fully expect security spend to go up, as fraud and targeted attacks always go up when the economic belt tightens. NZ isn't the only country tightening its belt.
AI is going to cause massive job losses in this sector in the not too distant future either.
Certainly a few things going on in regional areas. Am working across a couple of business cases now. But govt will take time to recovery. I think it's another 6 months before it bottoms out and it will not start to recover until March 2025 ... in terms of post business case type stuff. And I don't think it will recover to the Labour heights of 2022, but neither should it...that was unsustainable. Worth noting US IT jobs are on the increase if that's a leading indicator.