(Please welcome Krys Pritchard as our guest blogger this month.)
Where are the technical writing jobs? They aren’t in Ottawa. From what others in the field are telling me, the tech writing jobs aren’t in Seattle or Dallas-Fort Worth or the Silicon Valley or points in between. From the beginning of April through the end of June, there were four positions for technical writers advertised on workopolis.com in Ottawa. I know five senior technical writers who are looking for work. Not one of them landed one of those jobs. Only one of the five has a casual job, she is pouring concrete lawn ornaments. From words to concrete, that’s quite a career change.
The reality of being self-employed
Many technical writers, like others in the writing field, are self-employed. Self-employed people who are without work do not draw employment insurance benefits and are not counted in unemployment statistics. These non-working self-employed people also do not qualify for government-funded retraining programs. Non-working self-employed people are not dining out, having their clothes dry cleaned, picking up a loaf of bread at the bakery, going on vacations, or buying new cars, electronics, or houses. More jobs are affected by offshoring than those directly made redundant.
Business owners don’t blame the self-employed for a dip in your monthly or annual revenues; cast the blame where it belongs: managers at those companies that wanted to please their stockholders by reducing costs, regardless of the price to North American workers and the North American economy. When management started to view employees as “bodies warming chairs,” often the first body to be given a pink slip (or in some cases, sent an email that the person’s services were no longer needed), was the one that the manager perceived as contributing the least value to the project—often the technical writer.
These managers “discovered and exploited” the labor markets in low-cost nations to cut labor costs. The managers of a Canadian flagship company were so good at reducing costs through offshore outsourcing, the company shall soon be no more; stockholders will not receive any financial rewards from misguided decision to take jobs to China or India; and the labor pool of skilled and talented people available in Ottawa will grow. But where are the jobs for these talented people? IBM recently initiated a program called “Project Match” for its redundant North American workers to relocate to in India, China, and Brazil (http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/outsourcing/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000389) has drawn heavy criticism in the business world. Employees who accepted this offer would work for the reduced wages in the lower-cost countries. Not to mention the difficulty to return to North America if they lost their newfound jobs.
© Copyright 2009 K. Prichard and Capital Writing Services. All Rights Reserved
Capital Writing Services is located in the Ottawa area. To contact CWS, E-mail cws@ripnet.com.
About the blogger: Krys Prichard, President, Capital Writing Services, has 20 years’ experience in the technical and business communications fields.
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Freedom of speech my friend, that’s why
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