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Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

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Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#161
post #133
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The workers will get the lion's share. This doesn’t seem to be supported by history.

Labour share have GDP has held roughly constant throughout the ages, even as we saw massive productivity increases since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

How does that equate to the workers receiving the lion's share of the massive productivity increases?

Statistics like https://media.equality-trust.out.re/uploads/2024/07/incomedi... suggest that since 1970 the top 10% have profited more in their income than the bottom 50%.

Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#162
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always a new tech frontier. Like, weaving machines replaced looms, cars replaced carriages, and now it's AI. Each time, we need a new kind of worker. We shouldn't worry about jobs changing or vanishing, but we should worry that we won't learn and teach the new stuff fast enough.

There is a huge difference. If I am running a factory that use to create carriages and now creates cars, I need people who can create cars now. If I want to expand the number of customers I serve, I need to hire more people. If I am a software company, I don’t need to scale the number of software engineers I hire to serve more customers. Since gen AI has been a thing, I mostly pivoted to more strategy based cloud con…

This is an assumption where competition (as a wide term) does exactly the same and focuses solely on AI. But in reality, competition will scale both in incorporating AI and hiring more to keep up with the market.

Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#163

These jobs are being offshored to India. You can tell by how they're massively hiring there. Google launches largest office in India https://www.entrepreneur.com/en-in/news-and-trends/google-la... Microsoft India head says no layoffs in India https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/mic...

> These jobs are being offshored to India. That was inevitable the moment remote work caught on. Software engineers in rich countries were stupidly short-sighted to cheer on the remote work. If your work can be done from anywhere in the US, it can be done from anywhere in the world. If you think timezones or knowledge of English will save you, Canada has much lower wages for SWEs and central/south America has enough…

But specifically to India? There are many other countries with low income and robust education for CS and reasonable English skill. Eastern Europe for example.

Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Onshored, too. My mid-sized US city (Chattanooga) has an MSA of And yet the complaint/advice I hear most from local techies is to "WFH at a national company if you want to actually make any money, here. Or move elsewhere." Or some other iteration of "there aren't enough IT jobs here." I'm a blue collar tradesman, so WFH isn't really practical; but I'd definitely have to move elsewhere if I were in tech and didn't wan…

This, there's also another kind of "shoring" where people are imported and given salaries at the bare minimum to qualify for H1B. As per my other post, the net amount is staggering and no where near the supposed 65k cap. My own right estimates put it at ~600k annually.

There’s a very simple fix for this. Don’t make H1B a lottery system. Grant them in order of highest-paying roles.

We get access to truly exceptional people for whom companies are willing to pay exceptional wages, and we eliminate the exploitation of H1B visa workers.

Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, there's also another kind of "shoring" where people are imported and given salaries at the bare minimum to qualify for H1B. As per my other post, the net amount is staggering and no where near the supposed 65k cap. My own right estimates put it at ~600k annually.

There’s a very simple fix for this. Don’t make H1B a lottery system. Grant them in order of highest-paying roles. We get access to truly exceptional people for whom companies are willing to pay exceptional wages, and we eliminate the exploitation of H1B visa workers.

In the database I linked above, I have seen convenience store employees with low-salaried H1-B visas — how is it not possible to find such a citizen?!

Definitely like the idea of removing the lottery system — great suggestion.

Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These jobs are being offshored to India. That was inevitable the moment remote work caught on. Software engineers in rich countries were stupidly short-sighted to cheer on the remote work. If your work can be done from anywhere in the US, it can be done from anywhere in the world. If you think timezones or knowledge of English will save you, Canada has much lower wages for SWEs and central/south America has enough…

But specifically to India? There are many other countries with low income and robust education for CS and reasonable English skill. Eastern Europe for example.

Maybe all the strong Eastern European SWEs head to Western Europe for the higher pay?

Let's also not forget, India is a massive and growing market in its own right. Literally the 4th-largest economy in the world, soon to be 3rd. It's like China at the turn of the century.

Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#167
post #5

ChatGPT is not to blame for logistics, construction, medical, and other kinds of entry level jobs being down by a third..

What is to blame?

Our trade policy being determined by a coked-up narcissistic child that tantrums and creates a tariff anytime he hasn't been mentioned on the tv for too long or his buddies want to frontrun the market on the pullback and steal some money is not helping.

How confident do you feel about our economic policy? Even if your company isn't directly involved in international trade, there's a good chance your customers are. My customers are putting off non-essential software.

Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, solving problems yourself is easier than understanding solutions that AI serves to you

Yeah, but I could just not understand the AI solution and just run with whatever it give me. No effort there. If something doesn't work, I can just tell the AI to fix it. (Not a serious suggestion, but I do see this in the wild a lot)

Yes, I do unfortunately see this in the wild a lot as well

Maybe I'm the one who is ultimately a sucker, because I take too much pride in my work to do this

But I always thought that the quality of my work and my effort would be tied to my reputation, but I don't think the world works that way unless you are very well known somehow

Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But specifically to India? There are many other countries with low income and robust education for CS and reasonable English skill. Eastern Europe for example.

Maybe all the strong Eastern European SWEs head to Western Europe for the higher pay? Let's also not forget, India is a massive and growing market in its own right. Literally the 4th-largest economy in the world, soon to be 3rd. It's like China at the turn of the century.

India has a (very) low base effect so it's absolute GDP growth is high. But it is growing much slower than China at the same point. Currently India is growing at about 6-7%, at the same GDP per capita China was growing at ~12%. If growth doesn't slow down, it'll take ~30 years to reach where China is now. There are lots of structural problems about the economy, and growth will likely be uneven and slower in the future.

But it is not a great place for these firms because disposable income is so low. For example, the US generates the most revenue per user for Google because it has a really high income. India is unlikely to make any significant part of tech firms revenue for a long time.

Re: Entry-level jobs down by a third since launch of ChatGPT

#170
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge difference. If I am running a factory that use to create carriages and now creates cars, I need people who can create cars now. If I want to expand the number of customers I serve, I need to hire more people. If I am a software company, I don’t need to scale the number of software engineers I hire to serve more customers. Since gen AI has been a thing, I mostly pivoted to more strategy based cloud con…

This is an assumption where competition (as a wide term) does exactly the same and focuses solely on AI. But in reality, competition will scale both in incorporating AI and hiring more to keep up with the market.

The article is about entry level jobs. If I brought in two entry level developers to do the current POC project where I did the discovery, design and architecture, it would slow me down as opposed to feeding in the requirements to ChatGPT and letting it spit out the technical simple code that I require where the complexity is in the orchestration and business requirements.

I have never once said “it sure would be nice to have a few more junior devs. That would really increase our velocity”.

As someone who is responsible for getting projects done on time, within budget and meets requiremenga, why would I push for hiring fresh entry level devs instead of hiring a mid level dev with experience for only 20-30% more? The spread isn’t that great for enterprise developers.

It’s even more true now that I can push for hiring a mid level devs working remotely in East BumbleFuck South Dakota for peanuts.

For what’s its worth, I am classifying seniority by the ability to work at certain “scope” and “deal with ambiguity”, not someone who “codez real gud” and can reverse a b tree on the whiteboard

https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html

And there is a diminishing return on new features. If Google fired every developer not involved in search and ads, they could survive another decade or so and probably end up being more profitable since they can’t produce new good profitable products to save their lives

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