IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023 • Hacker News Board

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#111

Post by pc86 » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:08 PM UTC

hotpotamus wrote: post #106

pc86 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Why is the answer to firms automating everything "give me money for doing nothing" and not "get a different job?" Don't get me wrong I would love shorter work weeks, fewer hours a day, etc. for the same pay. That was the promise of all this additional productivity, after all. But even that is still getting paid for work. I just can't rationalize the idea of paying an entire population for nothing.

What other job would you recommend? It seems like the ones considered low hanging fruit for automation, the drudge-work, are actually resistant, but I don't really feel like asking people if they want fries with their burger.

Nobody at the beginning of the industrial revolution could have imagined the types of post-revolution jobs we have now. So "tell me what job to get then" is the wrong mindset.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#112

Post by yesdocs » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:10 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #54

gedy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah in past 20 years I would receive a job offer from nearly every company I interviewed with. Past few months have been really disappointing with rejections after interviews that I'd normally have said went great.

The higher you go, the more expensive you get. And the fewer places see the value you bring compared to a cheaper "senior sw dev" with 5 years of experience. If you want to be paid more than someone with 5 years, you have to generate more value than they do, and you have to persuade the hiring manager that you can generate more value. The fraction of places that can see that is smaller than the fraction that can see…

The mere statement that a 5 year ‘Senior’ software engineer has more perceived value than a ‘Senior’ software engineer with 20 years of experience is just crazy. Let’s replace ‘software engineer’ with ‘electrician’ and then tell me this is sane.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#113

Post by lgleason » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:11 PM UTC

Yet many still deny there is an issue with jobs and keep asking for more lenient immigration policies. There is no shortage of IT workers. There is/was a shortage of workers who were willing to work for peanuts.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#114

Post by pc86 » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:12 PM UTC

1-6 wrote: post #23

DebtDeflation wrote: post #9

That confirms my anecdotal experience. At times I felt I was losing my mind with all the "record low unemployment" and "soft landing" stories in the press. 2021 and 2022 felt like great years in terms of the job market. 2023 felt horrible.

It’s still horrible and lots of people at large companies are worried of getting laid off any second.

Is it horrible or is it reversion to the mean? Post-COVID hiring and pay was completely unsustainable, and I'm shocked it lasted as many years as it did.

You can't look at years of largesse and then when we get back to reality lament about how it's so horrible.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#115

Post by coolThingsFirst » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:13 PM UTC

Pepe1vo wrote: post #57

The cognitive dissonance I'm getting from reading the comments here is pretty staggering. Where I live (The Netherlands) me and every IT person I know is getting absolutely hounded by recruiters. As an additional anecdote I'll add that I've just switched jobs to a start-up on very favorable terms and the recruitment process basically amounted to being cold called and asked "hey you wanna work here?". Can anyone here…

A bartender makes same as a software engineer in NL

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#116

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:14 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #108

yesdocs wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s time we unionize as software developers. You saw what the UAW achieved, Software Engineering needs the same type of protections

Protectionism doesn't work beyond selfish short-term interests. American cars are not exactly paragons of technical or mechanical prowess compared to their Japanese or German counterparts. I've been a software developer for the better part of two decades, I'm not worried about the C-tier code coming out of rural India. You shouldn't be either unless you're a really bad dev.

I’m okay with my fellow citizens being selfish and protecting their livelihood. No one else will. “Whose interests?” You’re advocating for shareholder returns (labor arb savings->profits). Ain’t nobody coming to save us.

If we can mandate EV batteries be built in the US to get subsidies (Inflation Reduction Act), other protectionism mechanisms should be on the table. Otherwise, businesses will do their best to maximize profits in the market they’re offering in without any labor contribution back, extractionist style.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#117

Post by hattmall » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:19 PM UTC

Pepe1vo wrote: post #57

The cognitive dissonance I'm getting from reading the comments here is pretty staggering. Where I live (The Netherlands) me and every IT person I know is getting absolutely hounded by recruiters. As an additional anecdote I'll add that I've just switched jobs to a start-up on very favorable terms and the recruitment process basically amounted to being cold called and asked "hey you wanna work here?". Can anyone here…

Think of it as a wave. Right now, the EU is getting a slightly smaller version of the hiring peak of 2 years ago in the US. EU wages are considerably less but the quality is nearly the same. Productivity is a bit lower, but the cost is still advantageous. The goal is to find the cream of the crop before the competition, so a ton of hiring, then assessment and in a year or so reducing the workforce and the wave moves on the next frontier to find the most valuable employees.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#118

Post by syspec » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:19 PM UTC

manuelabeledo wrote: post #75

frontman1988 wrote: post #29

Elon showed with Twitter how you don't need hordes of engineers to run a company. He laid off 90% of the staff and still the website is doing alright (at least engineering wise). More engineers lead to more useless bullshit being created(like at Google). A lean mean team seems the way to go.

> He laid off 90% of the staff and still the website is doing alright (at least engineering wise). This is debatable. Twitter hasn't added any meaningful functionality in recent years, which is fine if you think your product can survive stagnation for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't think so, but who knows. Also, random Twitter functionality seems to be broken once a month, more or less. Last time I checked, new s…

I think to most people, twitter is fine and was fine with only its core product.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#119

Post by derwiki » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:19 PM UTC

orochimaaru wrote: post #36

deathpanels wrote: post #25

Everyone is talking about layoffs and lack of hiring, but I've found the problem to be that companies are cutting costs by silently increasing workload on existing employees. Everyone is getting burnt out trying to keep a 300-person engineering team running on only 100 head count. That leads to more incidents, slower delivery, less innovation, longer hours. Even those who are still employed are seeing working conditi…

I think a lot of big-co are setting up subsidiaries overseas and hiring there. It's different from the contract based offshoring model that happened in 2007 or so which had rather disastrous results. I know my company has and plans to have almost 1/2 its IT workforce as direct employees overseas.

I worked at a company that was doing this, but the candidates I interviewed were all below [what had been] the bar. Recruiters asked me why no one was passing the interviews; I told them I ran the interview the same way I had been doing for 3 years. I stopped being scheduled for interviews.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#120

Post by KptMarchewa » Mon, Jan 08, 2024, 4:21 PM UTC

dayofthedaleks wrote: post #107

pc86 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Why is the answer to firms automating everything "give me money for doing nothing" and not "get a different job?" Don't get me wrong I would love shorter work weeks, fewer hours a day, etc. for the same pay. That was the promise of all this additional productivity, after all. But even that is still getting paid for work. I just can't rationalize the idea of paying an entire population for nothing.

Ever read Vonnegut's _Player Piano_? Eventually there's just no real work to be done, unless you want to invent even more bullshit jobs for the FIRE sector.

Very similar story in Zajdel's Limes Inferior