[quote=kewp]The safe jobs are, generally speaking, in government. All levels, state, local, federal, military, are virtually immune to the tribulations the private sector employees are about to go through.

I work for the UC system; largely because I anticipated this economic meltdown a few years ago and wanted to get locked into something stable (with good benefits) until it was over.

Well, we just got word that in addition to having a salary freeze this year, we got hit with an additional mid-cycle budget cut. To top it off our pension fund is down almost 25% and we are looking at having to begin contributions again next year.

And, as FLUW mentioned, we are only in round two of this thing.

At this point I don’t think any job is *safe* and would not be surprised at all if we had lay-offs (though I feel my position is safe).

Funny enough, I still get a few pings a month from recruiters, so there is some evidence that there will always be jobs out there for good people.

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As a techie…You can always find employment if you’re current and hands on…It’s a question of how much underemployment you are willing to take. For example, if you have 10+ years of *current* and don’t mind working for the same price as your college grad, well you won’t have a problem with finding another gig…

Similar to the concept of homes will always sell in any market…It depends on what price…

I do feel for those folks with 15 years of experience but since then have moved out of a technical/hands on role….You can always underemployee yourself if you can still build stuff. But it’s sort of difficult to underemployee yourself if you are no longer hands on.

Back in good times, there was a lot of fluff positions. It’s going to be a lot tighter these days, where a lot of those managerial roles i think getting consolidated.