Are State IT Jobs Secure?

State government IT jobs pay lower than private sectors. Using the state of California as example, in Sacramento, the state capital, the top limit salary is about $76,000 per year for senior IT workers, — Senior Information Systems Analysts (DBAs, system administrators, software architects, etc) and Senior Programmer Analysts. In the same city IT workers with matching experience and skill levels should make $80,000 – $100,000.

No wonder during dot-com booming years the state had hard time recruiting qualified people. With big bonus and hype future prospects, nobody wanted to work for the state. During that time the state often provided job fair in hotels and offered jobs on site. It was so easy to server the public.

But now things changed completely. Still in Sacramento, California, an opening of Associate Programmer Analyst position (the lowest level) attracted over 1000 applicants. People have to take exams to get their names on the list, and then hope to see their names move up to be reachable. Only those whose names on top 3 ranks may be selected for interview.

Why state jobs become so hot? Job security, that’s the answer. After all of the lay-offs, outsourcing, offshores, people get scared and start to look for the safe heaven.

Are state jobs really secure? That’s true. It’s no doubt that any government job, federal, state, local, is more secure than public sectors. As for the state, like California, state workers job security is ensured by two major factors, –

First, union protection. State workers have strong unions. That really make a difference.

Second, state jobs cannot be outsourced to offshore countries like India and China, at least not now. So state IT workers don’t have to worry about jobs been taken by foreign workers.

However, not all state jobs are equally secured. The secret is, it depends how the agency, department, and position are funded. Agencies funded by special funds and federal funds offer more secured jobs than those by general funds.

For example in California, agencies like Franchise Tax Board (FTB) is funded by special funds, Department of Community Service gets a lot of federal funds, therefore their IT positions are very secure. Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is funded by both special fund and special funds, thus the jobs there are OK, although not as high as top level secured. On the other hand, departments like Parks and Recreations is funded mainly by general fund, therefore jobs there are less secured. But still, if it is a state job, you get job security at certain level.

Thus, when you are in an interview for a state position, ask how this agency and this position are funded. By knowing this, I get an idea how strong your job security could be.