Do you do what you like or what the labor market in your specialty is demanding at that moment? Where are you (career wise) when the economy does flourish or plunge? These questions remind me of the importance of the birth month for the hockey players (see Malcom Gladwell, "The tipping point"). Your development stages as an individual could come in collision with the economy cycles and your life could be doomed just because you were born in an unlucky year.
I remember reading about the lost generation in Japan: young people without any chances to get a job because the long recession coincided with their start in the labor market. Without prospects, with a stagnant economy they struggled to find jobs and opportunities were not existent as the older generation clutch their seats and didn't want to make room for the "new blood" in economy. The situation prolonged the agony of a lost generation which saw their dreams crushed in tough economic times.
With a bit of a twist the same parallelism could be molded on the special job market: IT was doomed in 2000-2001, finance people layed off along with closing of big finance power houses (Bear Sterns, Merill Lynch, HSBC in US). What other sectors are going to be so shaken because the economy is moving rapidly and clogs are impending the whole economy: health, law, manufacturing?
A few months back I met an engineer at almost 70 and still working. He was specialized in coal power generators and around 1980s his job was sent in Asia. What were the options, I asked him? "The company I worked for proposed to send me in China and train people there to do my job". Outsourced 1.0 was already happening before it became a hit with IT jobs moving in Asia. "I had to go, otherwise my family should have been confronted with a scary future". I asked him if that career move was bad or good for him.
"Listen, at that time that was a bold move. I had to live for 6-8 months far-away from my family but my income almost doubled. A part of your life disappears and you have to find another leg to balance it. I was lucky that after a while my wife moved with me and since then we lived in several countries - Singapore, China, India, Malaysia. Do I regret it? I don't know, you don't see the other side of the road (the alternatives) and cannot judge years of living with seconds of dreaming the life you could have."
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