May have to take forced early retirement (10 years early)

[getagrip_already]

8. I hear ya - also an IT consultant.....

For the past 10 plus years, I've been a "road warrior" travelling from customer to customer delivering advanced it solutions.

Well, now, there isn't much call for on-site consultants and I was laid off. I since found another job, but am paying through the nose for cobra health insurance. This gig could end anytime and then I'm off into the pool yet again. At 62, it's not as easy as it once was.

One of the pressures I'm seeing, though not explicitly, is that companies are very quickly assuming that since most of their projects need to be done remotely, it can easily be done by offshore resources at a fraction of the rate.

Also, there are a lot more gig workers willing to do pieces of remote projects for thin dollars. Especially support and other generic skill set positions.

Lots of ripple effects here. Everything from remote work to cloud and data center transformations to managed service providers are reducing the it infrastructure at companies large and small alike. Some of it is good. Some of it comes with security land mines that will destroy companies if they aren't careful - and few are.

Hope it works out for you. IT has always been a roller coaster ride. At least it isn't manufacturing or agriculture.