thoughts on the current job market

[Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>]

On an off-list discussion, some people have been pronouncing the death
of tech writing as we know it. Jobs are being off-shored, companies
are laying off staff writers and contracting the work out at $20 an
hour, and so on.

I don't see that. I've been seeing more suitable job listings and
getting more interviews in my current job search than the last time I
was looking (end of 2003 & beginning of 2004). Most of the openings
are for full-time staff positions. In cases where we discussed salary,
they didn't expect to have any problem paying me in the range
estimated by salary.com.

I don't see off-shoring as much of a threat. Development and QA seem
to be exportable, but the docs I've seen from Bangalore were unusable.
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