The fact that analysts were maintaining that IT is not in as much trouble today as it was during the last recession has served as something of a beacon of hope for tech workers.

[ Learn more about and the high-tech industry, plus , in InfoWorld's special report. ]

But that changed earlier in the week when . The analyst house projected global IT spending would decline by nearly 4 percent this year over last, citing a "general slowdown in demand for products and services across the board," to which IT is not immune.

While Forrester and IDC also see spending in a downward spiral, the firms do not exactly concur with Gartner.

Forrester this week circulated its "U.S. IT Market Outlook for Q1 2009," a rather bleak document that begins with the words, "The U.S. market keeps getting worse than we and many economists had expected."