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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

#191

Post by rayiner »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #116
pc86 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 maximi…

And at the end of the day, the ones doing the outsourcing will have outsourced themselves out of a job too. China won’t need American MBAs when they can do everything in house.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#192

Post by manuelabeledo »

syspec wrote: post #118
manuelabeledo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

"Most people" are the users. Users (mostly) aren't paying for the platform, advertisers are.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#193

Post by acdha »

bequanna wrote: post #177
Podgajski wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions can make deals as part of the labor contract that they will not offshore their jobs. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2017/03/03/wi...

Ok, so forcing a company to lock in high costs while non-union competitors can use offshore. Can you explain how this would even work? Why would any company agree to this?

Offshoring projects very commonly fail because companies dramatically overestimate the savings and underestimate the cost of communications, company culture, and experience. If you have a workforce which is delivering good results, there’s often a solid benefit to continuing that rather than chasing a mirage.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#194

Post by coolThingsFirst »

seanw444 wrote: post #159
coolThingsFirst wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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+.

[flagged]

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#195

Post by toomuchtodo »

rayiner wrote: post #191
toomuchtodo wrote: post #116

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…

And at the end of the day, the ones doing the outsourcing will have outsourced themselves out of a job too. China won’t need American MBAs when they can do everything in house.

Jack Welch died before getting outsourced after driving GE into the ground, and there are lots of folks like him still alive, empowered, and with that belief system. These are the folks controls are needed against.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#196

Post by giantg2 »

deathpanels wrote: post #186
giantg2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. My "team" is doubling in size, but all the hires are international.

I bailed on a small local company in early 2021. I checked in with how they were doing recently. They laid off all the local developers, minus management (of course). They're hiring exclusively in Africa, the Middle-East, and South America. My current company has done the same thing by emphasizing that we're only hiring in our EU office. I've not seen many US based roles unless they are customer support related. It i…

At least so far, we've seen foreign direct hires work out well. Much better than the outsourcing teams by a long shot.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#197

Post by ramesh31 »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #101

So if talent is cheap and we have many smart people unemployed why don’t we get organized and experiment on startup ideas we always wanted to build?

>So if talent is cheap and we have many smart people unemployed why don’t we get organized and experiment on startup ideas we always wanted to build?

Because capital.

Software, as a whole, is the most capital intensive industry in the world after energy/transportation: https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile...

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#198

Post by CrackerNews »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #194
seanw444 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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+.

[flagged]

This is ignoring that there's profit driven enshittification replacing talent with overworked and cheap overseas workers. Increasingly higher salaries are being replaced by cheaper salaries, and the results show in quality.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#199

Post by mistrial9 »

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.

the new CEO of Google is from India, no?

I see a lot of very qualified people coming from India, around a big University here.. They have had twenty years to build to this.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#200

Post by ptero »

closeparen wrote: post #173
orochimaaru wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At the same time, US salaries are either $300k+ in the Bay Area or $0 and unemployed, there's still no appetite to let someone work for e.g. $150k in a normal metro area.

There are many large, stable, profitable companies that are hiring software engineers. They are not software houses, but they pay well for a comfortable life (outside of NYC and Bay Area) and offer good work-life balance. For some examples you can look at medical devices, utilities, manufacturing, IBMs and Walmarts and R&D departments of virtually any large non-software company.

But there are frictions, too. Unless you go into management, comp tops out around $200k in most metros. HR -- instead of write-your-own-rules in a startup you have to take corporate training and get approval for things folks at the startups take for granted. Limited tools, externally managed corporate OS and software, Outlook instead of Slack. Office time requirements -- fully remote is very rare. And so on.

Not saying this is the wrong choice, just that there are tradeoffs.

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