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IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

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Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#151
In the doom an gloom of the article, there was a glimmer of hope however.

>But tech hiring over the fourth quarter led to a small net growth in IT jobs for 2023. There were 21,300 IT jobs added in the quarter, a positive signal for increased tech hiring going into 2024, Janco said.

Hopefully, the uptick in hiring trend continues and things improve in 2024. The tech jobs market is indeed, pretty bad right now.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#152

Considering 262k were laid off in 2023. Compared with 165k in 2022. The beginning of 2022 also included the over-hiring phase of the COVID Era[0]. You can see a clear sign of the worst being over and I would expect 2024 to start a return to normalcy again, maybe people will even start hiring again 2022 was not a good time to be entering the industry, but I think for people with 5+ years experience it was not so bad.…

I have 20 years experience and I have not had a job in 6 months.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#153
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…

It's many things. For example in Europe the bubble hasn't been so massive and not solely based on VC money. It's still also true for US that full-stack developers with 20 years experience in every technology are in high demand. For two years it was the same for almost every beginner as well, but not any more.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't my statement. Let me try again. A 5 year software engineer may have more perceived value per cost than a 20 year software engineer. Sure, if they have the same salary, you hire the 20 year engineer, but they don't. The 20 year engineer expects more pay, and (rightly) won't work for 5-years-of-experience wages. So you have to find an employer that perceives the additional value of the additional 15 years o…

Have you seen the salary requirements for these jobs? People are being paid way more than they were being paid 10 years ago. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is turning down jobs because of insufficient wages. The perceived ‘value’ that an employer sees is the ability of being able to exploit a younger engineer with ridiculous timelines and all night ‘coding sessions’ because they don’t have a family waiting for them when…

Then I guess I'm nobody. I was turning down jobs that wanted to pay me like I had 5 years of experience, just a year ago.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP also had multiple offers they would "not normally accept". We are spoiled in this industry.

There's no enough information to extrapolate that fact. Were these offers median salaries? Bottom 25th percentile? Lots of companies low-ball candidates because they are happy with Harbor Freight quality candidates, so long as they will work for Harbor Freight prices.

I had one company ask me to volunteer and another offer $40,000 for a senior dev position.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#157

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.

How people still believe that importing masses of immigrants from poorer nations who are used to a fraction of the standard of living and will be contempt with much less money has no effect on employment / wages is beyond me.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#158
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 maximi…

I appreciate you telling me what I'm advocating for. Any basic macroeconomics class covers the effects of protectionism. Yes, in the short term wages may be artificially propped up, industries may be (temporarily) saved, but you do long-term damage to the economy, and the people are better off with free, open markets long term.

> and the people are better off with free, open markets long term.

The theory only says that all the people globally will be better off. It does not say anything about citizens of a specific country that is applying protectionism. They may be better off for it, they may be worse - it depends on the particulars and, as most economic interventions, can only really be judged post-factum.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#159
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

To be fair, I probably make the same as a bartender here in the US. Blows my mind that people are easily making $120,000+.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#160
post #72
post #6

Honestly, I could feel it. In 2023, I practiced ~200 leetcode problems and learned how to create an LLM but I felt like I was the least employable I'd ever been. It was very difficult to get interviews, and even though I managed to get multiple offers, many of these were at companies I'd not normally have accepted offers from. It took a long time to find a job offer I wanted to accept. I do feel that there are signs…

> In 2023, I practiced ~200 leetcode problems and learned how to create an LLM but I felt like I was the least employable I'd ever been. You did two superficial things and are surprised you didn't feel more qualified? Practicing / memorizing leetcode and having a rudimentary understanding of LLMs (if I were hiring, we're targeting advanced degrees with a focus in the space) -- yeah, probably not sufficient. This is a…

I think this is very unfair. In the few months that I was looking, I put in more than 300 hours of study. It wasn't superficial and I didn't attempt to memorize anything — I wanted to understand fundamental techniques, and put a considerable amount of effort in to doing this, treating it as if it were my job.

Nobody owes me anything but that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to point out that this is the weakest I've ever seen the market in my decade or so of experience of it. It's very tough for those that have been laid off. Particuarly those have to support families as I did -- I am a sole earner and have two children.

You could benefit from practicing a bit of empathy and not lying to yourself that the market has merely moved back to "sanity" without gaining a bit of recent experience in it.

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