Tech jobs disappear at AIG -- and across the U.S.

From Computerworld, March 20, 2009...

As American International Group Inc. (AIG) paid out huge bonuses to executives, the company also laid off six IT workers, according to reports in the local media.

Let's face it, a layoff of six tech workers -- even at government bailout king AIG -- doesn't normally get noticed outside of small media outlets like the Lubbock, Texas, newspaper that reported the layoff story. Or to paraphrase what Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine told Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa Lund in Casablanca, "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three [in this case, six] little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

But the AIG layoffs serve as a reminder that IT workers nationally continue to see their jobs tank, according to data from the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses, an Alexandria, Va.-based group that analyzes U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

IT employment in the U.S. fell by 17,000 jobs in February (download PDF), or less than a half a percent. That's an improvement over December, which saw a decline of 56,000 jobs, or 1.4%, and January, with job cuts of 46,000, or 1.15%.

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