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Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

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Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#191

Post by game_the0ry »

oblio wrote: post #83
ppeetteerr wrote: post #26

Those are raw numbers. I would look instead at the job changes over total employment numbers. I don't have the numbers but I would wager we have many more people working in tech today (overall) than we did in 2008. Also, that spike in 21/22 really did a number on people's expectations. The one constant in this industry is its cyclical nature.

Asked Gemini quickly for 2000 and 2025 numbers (US). Tech employees: 5.5m vs 9.9. Software developers: 0.68m vs 3.2m. Different ball game.

> Software developers: 0.68m vs 3.2m.

Wow. Just wow.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#192

Post by lazyasciiart »

jimbokun wrote: post #96
yesb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relating it to performance is just silly. Most companies barely understand the performance of their employees much less candidates. The market has shrunk but not catastrophically so. Most people haven't been majorly affected but that doesn't mean they're automatically the most deserving or best performing. People with experience and/or credentials desired by companies in areas of growth (i.e. AI) are always in high d…

> People with experience and/or credentials desired by companies in areas of growth (i.e. AI) are always in high demand This is tautological.

No it isn't, because in the context of the comment it should be read "people with experience and/or credentials desired [...] are always in high demand " regardless of their actual performance level.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#193

Post by zeroCalories »

sam0x17 wrote: post #71
lowkey_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the bimodal, but I don't think this is junior vs. senior - I think it's just competence being rooted out. The majority of engineers, in my hiring experience, failed very simple tests pre-AI. In a world where anyone can code, they're no better than previously non-technical people. The CS degree is no longer protection. The gap between average and the best engineers now, though, is even higher. The best engin…

I see it the opposite way actually with respect to the CS degree. If you earned your CS degree (or any degree) before 2022 or so, the value of that degree is going to grow and grow and grow until the last few people who had to learn before AI are dying out like the last COBOL developers AI has fundamentally broken the education system in a way that will take decades for it to fully recover. Even if we figure out how…

We're now reaching the point where people have gone their whole college education on AI, and I've noticed a huge rise in the number of engineers that struggle to write basic stuff by hand. I had someone tell me they forgot how to append to a list in their chosen language, and couldn't define a simple tree data structure with correct syntax. This has made me very cautious about maintaining my fluency in programming, and I'll usually turn off AI tools for a good chunk of the day just to make sure I don't get too rusty.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#194

Post by janalsncm »

teagee wrote: post #10

The chart in the tweet represents year-on-year growth. Based on these figures alone the actual number of people employed in tech is still really high, and the numbers can't just go up forever. Also this only captures 6 industries, which is a narrow view of what would define "tech" these days. Not to say that the job market isn't tough but this graph is a very narrow view

The chart shows the derivative of the thing people care about which is total cumulative change. The area under the curve shows cumulative change.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#195

Post by bobanrocky »

pm90 wrote: post #38
alephnerd wrote: post #28

As I previously mentioned, based on person experience assumptions around hiring have changed due to the Twitter layoffs, demands for FCF positivity, and WFH inadvertently justifying offshoring [0], not necessarily due to interest rate changes. --- As I also mentioned, the only way you can survive in American tech at this point is to: 1. Move to a Tier 1 tech hub like the Bay and NYC. If you get laid off, you will pro…

I don’t believe this is true. There are plenty of roles that are happy to hire remotely. Sure, there is an in person requirement for many job listings but Ive found EMs/companies to be very flexible if they need to hire talent. For people that can’t/dont want to move to the “hubs”, just know that there is absolutely still a career path. I will say though that you need to have above average communication skills and pr…

Nope, the number of remote roles are drastically reducing. If your are a sw dev/mgr, you’ll need to be at least hybrid to your company’s ‘tech center’

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#196

Post by [deleted] »

weatherlite wrote: post #99
lowkey_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the bimodal, but I don't think this is junior vs. senior - I think it's just competence being rooted out. The majority of engineers, in my hiring experience, failed very simple tests pre-AI. In a world where anyone can code, they're no better than previously non-technical people. The CS degree is no longer protection. The gap between average and the best engineers now, though, is even higher. The best engin…

> The majority of engineers, in my hiring experience, failed very simple tests pre-AI Did you consider tech whiteboard / leetcode interviews are unnatural stressful environments ? Have you gone through a mid/difficult technical appraisal yourself lately ? Try it out just to get an idea how it feels on the other side...

[deleted]

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#197

Post by jmward01 »

A key thing in this graph is that it doesn't seem to correlate to the rise of code assistants. That is a (relatively) recent last year thing from my point of view. Yes, they were there before, but they hadn't really hit in a way that I think hiring decisions had shifted because of them. This is just tech laying off, not AI taking jobs.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#198

Post by cosmicgadget »

globular-toast wrote: post #119

What are people's plan Bs for when it goes tits up? I reckon I'd make a good electrician or something like that, but it's a real, grown up profession and I would have to get qualified.

Why don't those developers just learn to mine coal?

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#200

Post by kccqzy »

game_the0ry wrote: post #183
mlsu wrote: post #161

I just can't get over how short and intense the period between 2021 and 2023 was. There was SO much hype, such stupendous hiring, in such a compressed timeframe. Within the span of like 9 weeks it went from full steam ahead to completely seized. At the same time, the economy at large didn't seem to change very much. Why did this happen?

Near zero interest rates + COVID remote work + PPP loans = Booming economy What is happening now is the unwinding of the above. Now its: Higher rates + AI + too many SWEs (bootcamps and over-hiring) = Busting economy I think what we are in right now is more the norm and the post covid boom was an exception.

And also the section 174 change too, which suddenly increased the tax bill for any companies doing software development.
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