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Where is the AI jobs crisis?

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Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#101

Post by matheusmoreira »

voidfunc wrote: post #51
dywilby wrote: post #29

Anecdotally, there's an AI job crisis for juniors right now

Yea, we're basically not hiring anyone that isn't a senior developer already. That's going to be a huge problem eventually but not my problem to deal with. My best advice for folks that want to get into software now is be willing to do it cheap for awhile and then jump once you've developed some skills. If you were getting into this industry for the money you're properly fucked and I hope you didn't load up on debt.…

> If you're passionate about building stuff there's still room but the path forward is a lot murkier.

Definitely feel the murkiness. I've been programming as a hobby for over ten years and only recently started wanting to do it professionally. I'm actually wondering if there's a path for me.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#102

Post by gruez »

heathrow83829 wrote: post #76
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average weekly and hourly earnings were up in May [1], though “real average hourly earnings for all employees decreased 0.5 percent from March to April, seasonally adjusted” [2]. Nominal wages being up rejects the hypothesis that folks are being downsized into lower-paying roles. [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t19.htm [2] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm

be careful with "real" hourly earnings. if they're using the CPI then it can be very misleading. One need only compare nominal wages vs nominal rents per square foot for the last 50 years to see that actual wages have dropped by 30% and yet the "real" hourly average wage calculated via the CPI is flat, falsly implying that actual wages have not dropped.

> if they're using the CPI then it can be very misleading. One need only compare nominal wages vs nominal rents per square foot for the last 50 years to see that actual wages have dropped by 30% and yet the "real" hourly average wage calculated via the CPI is flat, falsly implying that actual wages have not dropped.

Yes, if you get to pick prices of arbitrary items to compare against, it's easy to come to whatever conclusion you want[1]. That's why CPI uses a basket of goods, specifically to avoid cherry picking shenanigans.

[1] https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/cpi2022junea-...

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#103

Post by actionfromafar »

wombatpm wrote: post #100
throwaway27448 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite frustrating that they track average rather than median wages. As wealth inequality increases, average will be less and less representative of worker health.

Old joke: Bill Gates walks into a bar. On average everyone there is a millionaire

That's a really old joke. :)

Here's a new one. Musk goes to a concert. On average everyone there is a billionaire.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#104

Post by 10xDev »

Ancapistani wrote: post #75
BaconPackets wrote: post #3

I'll need to look at the underlying data, but it seems that the job "classification/category" should be more important than the raw number. A boost in lower paid/service industry jobs does not mean that there wasn't a loss in a category where AI can be more easily dropped into existing businesses. Data : https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

What would cause an increase in the number of open lower paid and/or service industry jobs while simultaneously reducing the number of openings in tech?

World Cup / Summer.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#105

Post by 1attice »

bwestergard wrote: post #92
1attice wrote: post #80

The expectation of linear presentation of change in a bistable system is gobsmacking here. If this kind of argument were generally valid, it would imply that: - all change neither accelerates nor decelerates, which is absurd, on the face of it; - the initial stages of a deep change are always surface-visible; for instance, cancers announce themselves when they begin to gestate, rather than when they metastasize - A f…

Not really a question of linear versus non-linear change when we see, in aggregates, almost no change at all.

in, what, six months and like two points of data? No thank you, I prefer my thinking science-y.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#106

Post by sp1982 »

heathrow83829 wrote: post #84
sp1982 wrote: post #30

I run a job search site and I don't see a crisis in terms of job openings even for SWE - but there is very clear signal that AI is deeply getting embedded in every SWE job. https://corvi.careers/blog/global_software-engineering_jobs_...

Your own site shows there's very very little demand for entry level SWE which mirrors all the other data we've seen. BTW, cool site!

Thanks. Yes, entry level roles appear to be under pressure, and middle-management roles in the Bay Area may be seeing similar pressure. (anecdotally) What is less clear is whether these are early warning signs of a broader shift, or simply cost cutting measures to account for AI spend.

IMO, AI coding tools have materially improved SWE productivity compared with two years ago. The open question is whether demand for new products and services will expand enough to absorb that productivity gain. If demand does not increase correspondingly, then it may only be a matter of time before we see meaningful job market pressure, starting with SWE.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#107

Post by Daishiman »

5701652400 wrote: post #63
voidfunc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, we're basically not hiring anyone that isn't a senior developer already. That's going to be a huge problem eventually but not my problem to deal with. My best advice for folks that want to get into software now is be willing to do it cheap for awhile and then jump once you've developed some skills. If you were getting into this industry for the money you're properly fucked and I hope you didn't load up on debt.…

same applies for seniors as well. ther isn't much distinction of senior vs junior human dev (as in cost and efficiency) compared to AI-dev (cost and efficiency). more so, at current imrpovement rate. in couple more years you would not need seniors anymore either.

As long as architectural decisions have long-term costs and you need human taste and judgement to speculate on what business needs will come about in the next few years you'll still need human engineers.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#108

Post by OptionOfT »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #69

It's crazy that so often I see articles, here on HN and elsewhere, where some pundit claims that there is no AI job crisis, AI isn't replacing any jobs, that layoffs are actually due to post-pandemic ZIRP overhiring, etc. But then people who work in actual tech companies come in and explicitly say they are not hiring any juniors anymore specifically because AI is good enough to do most of what juniors do, and that se…

> There seems to be a desire for a narrative that AI really just can't replace productive work, and that it's all a mirage.

Yes, and juniors aren't known for their productive work in the beginning. That's not their purpose. Their purpose is to do the mundane work, because it is important for them to become less junior and more senior.

That is robbed of them.

Which in 5-10 years means the need for senior developers is gonna shoot through the roof.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#109

Post by OptionOfT »

sp1982 wrote: post #30

I run a job search site and I don't see a crisis in terms of job openings even for SWE - but there is very clear signal that AI is deeply getting embedded in every SWE job. https://corvi.careers/blog/global_software-engineering_jobs_...

I'd correct that to forcefully embedded, like unpaid on-call.

Re: Where is the AI jobs crisis?

#110

Post by sdellis »

nawgz wrote: post #83
atleastoptimal wrote: post #69

It's crazy that so often I see articles, here on HN and elsewhere, where some pundit claims that there is no AI job crisis, AI isn't replacing any jobs, that layoffs are actually due to post-pandemic ZIRP overhiring, etc. But then people who work in actual tech companies come in and explicitly say they are not hiring any juniors anymore specifically because AI is good enough to do most of what juniors do, and that se…

> However it seems just like common sense that if an AI can do junior-engineer-level coding work, that a company has less reason to hire a junior engineer. I mean, if we want to not talk about economics that’s fine, but can the AI actually do junior work at the same price? What if we don’t look only at quarterly reports, and instead include the value of having people knowing about the business having to explain it to…

It's not so much a question of whether AI is strong or not. It's a question of whether the tradeoffs (theft of intellectual property, coal burning, lack of transparency, stealing water, rising energy prices, global surveillance, etc.) are worth the outcomes. It's not even a serious question.

If AI was truly strong, we would be seeing signs in the job market. And we would certainly be seeing a lot more subscriptions and demand for these services. For most people, AI does not improve their lives. For a lot of them, especially younger people, it makes their lives much harder and sadder.

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