With all the hub-bub about the future of Flash and HTML5 flying around the intertubes, we wanted to point out one obvious fact. While HTML5 or Flash may one day be the end all solution to all the world’s woes, there’s only one woe we at 360|Flex are concerned about: Getting people paid.

Because of the rebranding of Flash and the associated technologies, the term Flex is now a bit watered down. However, we still wanted to use it to point out something that should be obvious to all, but may be lost in the debate. Flex work pays now, as in today, and will for the foreseeable future. A lot of enterprises have invested heavily in Flex. They’re not going to give up that investment anytime soon, particularly since the Flash Player on the desktop isn’t going anywhere.

To prove this, I did a quick little search on the monster.com website. This is not a debate about this particular job site’s ability or merit. Monster is big enough to represent the world at large, i.e. outside the Silicon Valley bubble where this Flash vs HTML5 debate is going down most vigorously. Therefore, it’s good enough for my non-scientific experiments.

First off, I did a search for HTML5 jobs nationwide. Let’s take a look at the results:

The results of my nationwide HTML5 job search

Next, I did a search for Flex jobs nationwide. Let’s take a look at this results there:

The results for the nationwide Flex job search

Now, some people will argue, what if you did a search for “HTML 5″ vs “HTML5″.  That brings the number up to 1700, but a quick glance shows that the majority are NOT HTML5 jobs. Rather, they’re HTML jobs with the number 5 somewhere in the job listing.  Also, “Flex hours” must also boost up the “Flex” search, right?  I found 1 “flex hour” posting in the first 100 jobs, so I don’t think the argument is valid

Now, what happens to the numbers if you search for “Flash” or “ActionScript”? I don’t know, because I didn’t .  Why not? Well, because Flex’s 1300 is close enough to the results of “HTML 5″ and blows way past the results for “HTML5″ to illustrate the main point:

Today, you can get hired by roughly 1300 companies to do Flex work or you can get hired by 18 companies to do HTML5 work.

If there’s one thing we’re very aware of at 360|Flex, it’s getting paid to do work.  We think getting paid is good.  We also started the conference to help you better your pay (if your working with Flex) or to help you find a new job (if you’re not working with Flex).  Therefore, we just wanted to point out that attending 360|Flex for the foreseeable future is a worthwhile investment.  Register now and participate in the greatest gathering of Flex developers anywhere.