Careers & Education

More than four out of 10 U.S. IT workers received no raises during 2003, but 60 per cent expect to receive a raise of at least three per cent in 2004, according to a new survey released by skills assessment firm Brainbench Inc.

For years, IT specialists sat dispassionately as one career category after another succumbed to the ravages of automation. Now, in the first years of the 21st century, it's the IT professionals' turn to anxiously look over their shoulders and wonder if some box, sitting silently in a windowless room, will soon send them on a trek to the unemployment line.

Brian Dunphy probably hasn't seen every computer security mistake under the sun, but those he remembers are doozies.

CIO U.S.'s Stephanie Overby offers two possible scenarios depicting what could happen to IT career opportunities in the future

Although Instant Messaging (IM) can be an extremely convenient way to casually communicate work-related messages, just as often it seems to end up as a comedy of errors: misinterpretations of tone, sending a personal message to the wrong contact and putting up with the terrible nicknames the guy in sales, a.k.a. "Sultan_of_Sales", feels compelled to use.

David Butler, 59, was thinking of heading for the fairways of retirement in 1998. At the time, he was wrapping up a 31-year tenure with Dow Chemical Co. But when he was offered a job as corporate vice-president and CIO of Whirlpool, his R&R reveries quickly turned into visions of his company's products in more than 80 million homes. Thus, he postponed his retirement plans for another five years.

Will there still be IT jobs in the future? If IT becomes seamlessly integrated into everybody's lives, what happens to IT people? What will they do and where will they work?

The labour union representing a small but growing number of IBM Corp. employees is considering taking action against the company's reported plan to move nearly 5,000 jobs offshore, including asking employees to refuse to train their replacement workers.