We've previously mentioned Eric Hameleers AKA alienbob AKA Alien BOB and his run-Slackware-from-removable-media project. He even created an account here to comment on our story about that. (His sole activity here, so far.)
He now blogs
I am being laid off by my employer, IBM. Jobs in the Netherlands move to lower-wage countries like Poland and India, while IBM changes course towards a "cognitive" future in which there is less interest in the traditionally skilled technical IT jobs.
Unparalleled (because forced) job cuts in the Netherlands are the result of that change of focus. Almost 10% of the IBMNL work force is sent away in a "re-balancing" operation and I am out of a job per November 1st.
[...] As long as I still work for IBM (seven weeks), I have access to Safari Books Online where I can freely access and use the available course materials which prepare for the RHCE exam. This will of course affect the time I can spend on Slackware. I commonly spend nearly every after-work hour on packaging, scripting, and assisting people online and via email. That stops now.
[...] I also cannot promise that--when I have found a new job--that I will be able to provide the levels of support that you may have gotten used to.
(Score: 1) by bart on Friday September 16 2016, @12:20PM
There is a huge shortage of IT workers in the Netherlands, and we're importing them from all over the place.
I don't know which jobs are being outsourced, but it's not as if there's a shortage of well-paying interesting IT jobs here:
http://www.monsterboard.nl/vacatures/q-ict-vacatures.aspx [monsterboard.nl]
My team department has colleagues from Poland, Russia, Costa Rica, Germany, Canada, Ukraine, Spain, France, ... you name it.
And we're in Amsterdam.
Greetings