Like most of us you’ve probably heard about the new IPhone 4 which has already sold over 3 million devices despite some complaints about cell phone signal quality. Oh, did I mention that Apple’s best product launch ever, the Iphone 4, is taking place while the economy is down - still somewhat in a recession? Or at least the tail end of the Great Recession. So what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Well how about jobs? That’s right, with Apple’s Iphone 4, Motorola’s Droid X and now the Droid 2, the mobile technology market is not only keeping people on the payroll but adding more head count.

So from the looks of economic and consumer buying trends it looks like the Information Technology Industry is poised to be the next economic savior. Sorry Construction and Housing industry you had the last wave, sit back relax and let the good folks in Silicon Valley make things happen. Of course, Google is a key player in the growth of the mobile industry as well as a huge employer. Right now with Google’s success in the Android operating system (Android 2.2 has just landed) coupled with Google’s interest in broadband infrastructure, you can expect the hiring trends in Technology to continue.

So needless to say if Information Technology is how you make your living you’re probably smiling from ear to ear. If not, guess what? This is a perfect time to consider IT as a career choice. With unemployment levels still stubborn in many states, there’s still a wealth of grant funds available to cover most if not all of training to enter IT as a new field. One best kept secret is the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) program which is sponsored by the Feds but administered by your state of residence. So even though the economy is stubborn at the movement, sales are up for the Iphone 4 and the Droid series of phones. So no more excuses. With Google, Apple, Motorola, Microsoft and others on the move, the mobile technology market is where it’s at which invariably means jobs, jobs and more jobs.

In a struggling economy with fewer and fewer jobs available while demand for jobs remains high, "need it now" in terms of timely job leads is a must. Does that make you wonder, is it time to say goodbye to the concept of job boards? You can bet your bottom dollar that's on the mind of many job sites that are undoubtedly experiencing low volume in terms of job postings. Some of that is just the natural cycle of demand, any, product or service experiences. On the other hand, a good portion of it is due to the job board concept simply being a dinosaur job lead channel that has failed to spur innovation or at least simply keep up with the end users want and how best to deliver what job seekers want -- solid accurate timely job openings.

So if job boards are struggling, which many of them are, what have the mass exodus of job seekers turned to? In a nutshell, job seekers have reverted to the days of person to person contact or good ole fashion networking. You know the days where you actually interacted with a person and worked mojo to get your foot in the door. That's what happens when the new ways fail, job seekers revert to what is tested and true. In short, real time job search is where it's at and the leaders in job search understand this reality and have embraced such reality. Conversely, the job sites feeling the most pain are those holding on to cheap job search pages that simply relied on static job postings and big budgets to gain favor with search engines.

Surely, there's no doubt the economy is taking its toll on job site, job board and job search engine alike. On the other hand innovation and staying connected with your base is essential in any market. Right now, the job seeker base is screaming loudly for ways to gain privy knowledge of hiring trends and the ability to respond quickly to job openings that represent a strong match. Short of real time job search, job sites simply fail to meet these fundamental requirements of today's job seekers. So while it may not be time to say goodbye to, all, job boards, job seekers simply expect more from job search engines as real time job search is "IN" while posted and re-posted snail pace job listings are "OUT".

Perhaps there are a few organizations left where doing a good job means you get to keep your job, but at HP the integration with EDS means 3,000 job losses. Talk about a slap in the face, that's about as crude as it gets. Why on earth would you give a hard working performing employee (or in this case 3,000 employees) the axe? Well according to HP, the integration with EDS is going so well that its ahead of schedule. Corporate lingo translation - we brought in the big guns, treated them like gold so they performed well for us and now its time to trim the payroll since the "big guns" cost too much and we would rather transfer those savings to bonuses for the bigwig executives. Sound familiar?

Wait a minute, Justin, i think your facts are off, i thought HP was hiring nearly 6,000 employees. Well, in fact that is true, HP is hiring nearly 6000 employees to it's sales and delivery teams while cutting 3000 in engineering and technical related staff. So in other words, HP is trading engineering staff for product pushers and order takers. Hummh an engineering firm that favors order takers over engineering staff...lets see where that goes. According to HP though, there is another phase, following the current phase of the EDs integration which will focus on standardization and automation of EDS services. It's a little hard to understand how HP will win favor with the technical gurus for the phase II EDS integration, when HP has already shown in phase I that the technical know how folks are pretty low on the priority list - long term. For now all we know is that the HP EDS integration equates to 3000 job losses, as for anything else we'll just have to wait and let those chapters unfold.