A report at odds with a previously reported 'strong hiring' story. "Demand for U.S. technical workers fell 44 percent in the past year, the Washington Post reported, citing a study to be released on Monday by the Information Technology Association of America."

Click here for the yahoo news article.

Depends on through which filter you're looking at these numbers!

Yahoo's headline may be pessmistic, but LA Times sees a silver lining:

http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/20010402/t000028133.html

Statistics are good indicators definitely, no doubt about it..When you have contradicting reports, I think it might be a good idea to look around you and find out whats happening, instead of only looking at the statisitics...
Find out whats happening with your friends and foes...
One year back, my friends use to chose among bunch of jobs to join with and now I hear lot of them have been waiting for like 3 to 4 months for getting a job. I also hear some of them are getting laid off...Well, if the demand for technical workers has not dropped I wonder why things are different now.

Demand for junior and mid-level tech workers have dropped. Demand for senior engineers and architects, however, still remain high. This is a common pattern during down-market and times of attrition.

this article supports your comments....

http://home.techies.com/Common/Content/2001/04/09mc_demanddrops.html

Also from personal experience: I just tested the Southern California job market last week and found a 20% increase in my already-overinflated salary isn't out of the question at all...

I think the article is too general. The bulk of the layoffs have been just-graduated, HTML work, and so on.

People that got non-technical degrees, did some self-study and learned on the job are in trouble.

The demand for Java (especially J2EE), Oracle, etc is just as high, if not higher.