It's mid-2009 and the market for Web developers is pretty slim right now. However, there are opportunities available for specific skillsets. Here in Silicon Valley, I get several calls each week from headhunters and corporate recruiters. There is still a need for those with web design experience and expertise in:

• user interface design
• Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI)
• Ajax
• PHP and MySQL
• cross-browser CSS
• Ruby on Rails
• JavaScript and DOM manipulation
• XML and XSL

In other parts of the country, more value is placed on those with experience in vendor-specific development tools such as ASP, Visual Studio and in graphics tools such as PhotoShop and Illustrator.