I saw an article recently which said that almost 400k IT people have been laid off in the last few years, and it's not clear when it may end, if at all.
As an unemployed middle-aged person, my only callbacks have come when I truncated my resume to 10 years ;-)
Anyway, with many in the same boat, it seems timely to talk about worker cooperatives. I've made attempts to join or start one in the past, which I'll post about.
I'm interested to know what others think about this.
@mpotter In case you haven't run across this one yet: A Technology Freelancer’s Guide To Starting a Worker Cooperative
@GuerillaOntologist For me, obstacles to starting a co-op are less about understanding the structure of such businesses, and more a lack of interested potential coworkers. The defunct Yahoo co-op email lists used to get a query about every six months with few responses.
I once tried to host a meetup in my local area. Only one guy showed up but he had no support from his wife because corporate was more reliable and paid better. This last may not be true any more.
@mpotter
Also being in a toxic corporate environment, I have been looking into tech coops as well. "Potential coworkers" is one thing that always seems limited by development type. (IT, web development, etc.) I've been doing embedded systems for 30+ years. I've been involved in local tech meetups and coworking spaces. It's hard to find like minded individuals that you might want to partner with.
@GuerillaOntologist
@lwriemen @GuerillaOntologist It's very true that finding the right people with similar goals can be difficult.
I'm not a coder, and most tech co-ops are programming shops that I'm not a fit for, and a few are local tech support in other cities.
I think anyone I find will just be luck, which I've had more than my fair share of. I just happened to be sitting on a surfboard when the late 90s tech wave rolled in. Despite my complaints, the industry has been pretty good to me.