Live data from Hacker News

IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

wsj.com

211–220 of 592 posts

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#211

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…

To me it looks like tech is just falling more in line with other industries pay/workload. I think there are many who joined the tech workforce during the pandemic thinking the norm was to make $135k while doing 10 hours of real work a week from home, twiddling a few lines of bootcamp level javascript to appease your largely absent boss. Many may forget, or not have been there, but 10-15 years ago tech jobs were notor…

> Many may forget, or not have been there, but 10-15 years ago tech jobs were notorious for ridiculous workloads/long hours.

And I can't understand sorry, why should we go back to this scenario, exactly?

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#212
> Based on analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Janco, news that the IT industry added just 700 jobs following an estimated 262,242 jobs lost amid mass layoffs is shocking, but not surprising.

So it isn't that only 700 jobs were created, it's that despite the massive layoffs everyone is reporting on and focusing on, there was actually a small net positive in job growth.

> Currently, there are almost 100K unfilled jobs with over 101K unemployed IT Pros – a skills mismatch.

Staying current with skills is always part of an IT professional's job. Additionally, I suspect that a lot of these unfilled positions are either paying too low, or aren't real jobs.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#213

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.

My previous company was doing this. I basically quit out of frustration. They weren't much better than picking random people off the street and pointing them at code. It bled into my work life when they took over a project I was on and was pinging me constantly with "hello" and "good morning" expecting to jump on calls with their teams to explain exactly how to do their jobs. An example to illustrate what I was worki…

Now that's problem solving!

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#214

> Based on analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Janco, news that the IT industry added just 700 jobs following an estimated 262,242 jobs lost amid mass layoffs is shocking, but not surprising. So it isn't that only 700 jobs were created, it's that despite the massive layoffs everyone is reporting on and focusing on, there was actually a small net positive in job growth. > Currently, there are almost 100K…

All Principal/Staff positions or laptop repair.

Canada's latest economic report had a net positive of only 100 jobs in the entirety of the labor market.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#215
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

Absolutely. It’s weird though that tech focused companies with Silicon Valley style cultures who are looking to cut costs are completely uninterested in those regions. With more developer-friendly working conditions, they wouldn't have to compete as aggressively on TC. And with more normal cost of living, it could be sustainable for senior people who are not independently wealthy to have long tenures there.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#216

> Based on analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Janco, news that the IT industry added just 700 jobs following an estimated 262,242 jobs lost amid mass layoffs is shocking, but not surprising. So it isn't that only 700 jobs were created, it's that despite the massive layoffs everyone is reporting on and focusing on, there was actually a small net positive in job growth. > Currently, there are almost 100K…

How many of those 100K unfilled jobs are real?

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#218
So if it wasn't for jobs added in December it would've been negative. On the bright side, given the large number of tech jobs added in December, maybe things are starting to picking up again?

(seems a bit odd as usually there's not much hiring going on around the holidays, yet in 2023 December had the highest hiring numbers according to that data)

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#219

> Based on analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Janco, news that the IT industry added just 700 jobs following an estimated 262,242 jobs lost amid mass layoffs is shocking, but not surprising. So it isn't that only 700 jobs were created, it's that despite the massive layoffs everyone is reporting on and focusing on, there was actually a small net positive in job growth. > Currently, there are almost 100K…

> So it isn't that only 700 jobs were created, it's that despite the massive layoffs everyone is reporting on and focusing on, there was actually a small net positive in job growth.

Were it not for December hiring (which is usually pretty low in most years, but was the highest for any month last year according to the data) it would've been negative. That could mean that things are improving in the tech job market - have to see if the trend continues into January, February this year.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#220
"IT Employment Grew by Just 700 Jobs in 2023, Down From 267,000 in 2022

Despite business and investor hype around generative AI last year, information-technology hiring slumped as companies laid off workers and sought to cut costs

The information-technology sector grew by only 700 jobs over 2023, a drastic slowdown from the 267,000 jobs added in 2022, even as artificial intelligence and ChatGPT spawned huge interest from businesses.

Job losses in the first half of 2023, including layoffs at technology-driven companies that dominated the period, hurt overall hiring for tech jobs in all industries, said Victor Janulaitis, chief executive of consulting company Janco Associates. The firm bases its findings on data from the U.S. Department of Labor."

Once companies see how much they can save by spending less on IT, they might not go back to overspending.

Post reply on HN