Hard-hitting IT columnist Simon Moores gives his personal take on
the hot issue of the day.My friend, a long-standing director of a
well-known IT company, was visibly shocked. The previous day, we
had been discussing the expected wave of redundancies that was
about to wash over the UK. He had thought his own job was
safe.
Instead, he and several other members of senior management had been
given their marching orders, leading me to comment that it was all
rather looking like an episode of
Band of Brothers. It's
hard to find anyone over the age of 48 who is left in this business
after the events of the past 12 months.
Another person, a "knowledge worker" in the IS department of a
well-known company, told me: "It's getting silly. All the plants
have been removed and there's no coffee for meetings either. There
are very few Indians left to do the real stuff and a
disproportionate number of chiefs with grand titles hanging on by
their fingernails.
"It's all rather sad and is creating more inefficiency rather than
achieving the streamlining that the US HQ had in mind."
Earlier this month, I wrote about the silent recession and I'm
wondering how much longer we can ignore what's happening in the
industry around us. This week, I learned that Unisys, a company
that made savage cuts last November, is about to prune its European
workforce back even further, and it's not the only company to do
so.
What appears to be happening in many cases is that the US
headquarters of large and well-known companies, worried by
declining sales, poor forecasts or even prospects of a visit from
US watchdog the Federal Trade Commission, conduct a workforce
reduction exercise on a spreadsheet which, in some regions, ignores
the successful operations and collectively axes entire programmes
or departments in the interest of reducing costs globally.
Here in the UK there's also a vague and sinister sense of ageism a
work. Of course, senior management are expensive but I can't help
but wonder whether "the recession" is also being used as a
convenient excuse to remove the so-called "geriatrics" in larger
organisations - that's anyone like me, over the age of 45 and who
admits to owning a cardigan and a Volvo.
Forget then, the glossy television and Web site advertising,
because where can all these IT people go? I certainly don't know,
but I believe that many big companies are too under-resourced to
offer their customers the service they deserve and that a great
many talented individuals are suddenly finding themselves holding
P45s with little or no prospect of finding work in the foreseeable
future.
I can recall two previous recessions in this industry and both were
painful and more like sudden contractions compared with what I have
witnessed in the past 18 months.
While IT companies peddle the benefits of technology, they forget
that any dreams of e-business and even a knowledge economy have to
be built by people, and that the gravitational effect of downsizing
can only go so far before this industry slowly collapses into a
black hole of its own creation.
Meanwhile, the expression "buddy, can you spare a dime?" springs to
mind, and for those readers who have recently received or are about
to receive bad news, I can only wish you luck and a more profitable
career outside the ungrateful world of IT.
What's your view?
Is ageism rife in the IT industry?
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ZentelligenceSetting the world to rights with the collected thoughts and
opinions of the futurist writer, broadcaster and Computer Weekly
columnist Simon Moores.