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Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

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Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#31

Post by xrd »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #25
ICantFeelMyToes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but there is also a massive proliferation of ghost jobs. Dirty secret for a bunch of Series A places

I see everyone say this but what is the point of making a fake job opening? Are companies just doing that to see if a unicorn applies?

Two reasons. One, they have already filled it internally but legally have to post the job. Two, they are gathering data on market trends and what salaries people will take, which is useful if they are considering firing people and rehiring with lower salaries.

I've applied for many jobs where I was perfectly qualified and got rejection notices immediately. I applied on a Sunday and got rejected on Sunday an hour later. No human reviewed that application I made, it was auto rejected, and if that's the case, what other explanation is there than "ghost jobs."

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#32

Post by [deleted] »

teagee wrote: post #10

The chart in the tweet represents year-on-year growth. Based on these figures alone the actual number of people employed in tech is still really high, and the numbers can't just go up forever. Also this only captures 6 industries, which is a narrow view of what would define "tech" these days. Not to say that the job market isn't tough but this graph is a very narrow view

[deleted]

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#33

Post by phendrenad2 »

mjr00 wrote: post #15

In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…

> Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever

I haven't found that to be true. Unless by "top candidates" you mean people working at actual AI companies such as Alphabet/Meta/OpenAI/Anthropic. If you're an AI-user and not an AI scientist it's bad out there, even for senior+ developers who previously worked in "FAANG".

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#34

Post by mrweasel »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #26

Those are raw numbers. I would look instead at the job changes over total employment numbers. I don't have the numbers but I would wager we have many more people working in tech today (overall) than we did in 2008. Also, that spike in 21/22 really did a number on people's expectations. The one constant in this industry is its cyclical nature.

Maybe I'm reading the graph wrong, but the decrease comes after years on continuous growth, so total employment numbers in tech should still be absolutely massive, compared to 18 years ago?

If it continues, then yes it could be bad, but so far it seems like a correction for over-hiring in 2021 - 2023. Seems a little weird to be focusing on a decline in 2024 - 2026, without addressing the large increase right in the years before.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#35

Post by devin »

lumost wrote: post #27
chillacy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found this to be true so far, junior engineers with AI can be super productive but they can also cause a lot of damage (more outages than ever) and AI amplifies the sometimes poorly designed code they can generate. I suspect a lot of it best practices will be enforcing best practices via agents.md/claude.md to create a more constrained environment.

I’ve observed radically different workflows amongst senior candidates vs junior candidates when using an ai. A senior candidate will often build an extremely detailed plan for the agent - similar to how you would do a design for/with a junior engineer. Then let the agent go full throttle to implement the plan and review the result. Juniors seem to split into the category of trust everything the ai says, or review eve…

My observation has been that there are a lot of personal styles to engaging with the LLMs that work, and "hold the hand" vs "in-depth plan" vs "combination" doesn't really matter. There is some minimum level of engagement required for non-trivial tasks, and whether that engagement comes mid-development, at the early design phase, or after isn't really that big of a deal. Eg; "Just enough planning" is a fine way of approaching the problem if you're going to be in the loop once the implementation starts.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#36

Post by zthrowaway »

GenerWork wrote: post #4

There's still the hangover from free Covid money. I think the number one reason that it feels worse is that there's a LOT more people in the industry now than back in 2020. Much more competition than before.

Yup. Amazon doubled their workforce through the pandemic. I think a lot of tech companies are still cutting fat from those days.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#37

Post by yesb »

mjr00 wrote: post #15

In my experience, tech employment is incredibly bimodal right now. Top candidates are commanding higher salaries than ever, but an "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position. Contrary to what many say, I don't think it's simple as seniors are getting hired and juniors aren't. Juniors are still getting hired because they're still way cheaper and they're just as capable as using AI a…

Relating it to performance is just silly. Most companies barely understand the performance of their employees much less candidates. The market has shrunk but not catastrophically so. Most people haven't been majorly affected but that doesn't mean they're automatically the most deserving or best performing.

People with experience and/or credentials desired by companies in areas of growth (i.e. AI) are always in high demand

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#38

Post by pm90 »

alephnerd wrote: post #28

As I previously mentioned, based on person experience assumptions around hiring have changed due to the Twitter layoffs, demands for FCF positivity, and WFH inadvertently justifying offshoring [0], not necessarily due to interest rate changes. --- As I also mentioned, the only way you can survive in American tech at this point is to: 1. Move to a Tier 1 tech hub like the Bay and NYC. If you get laid off, you will pro…

I don’t believe this is true. There are plenty of roles that are happy to hire remotely. Sure, there is an in person requirement for many job listings but Ive found EMs/companies to be very flexible if they need to hire talent.

For people that can’t/dont want to move to the “hubs”, just know that there is absolutely still a career path. I will say though that you need to have above average communication skills and proactively build relationships during in person off-sites.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#39

Post by rexpop »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #25
ICantFeelMyToes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but there is also a massive proliferation of ghost jobs. Dirty secret for a bunch of Series A places

I see everyone say this but what is the point of making a fake job opening? Are companies just doing that to see if a unicorn applies?

I had an AI-agenerates answer for you, but then I realized something deeper: moral hazard.

> Moral hazard is when one party takes actions that impose costs on others because they don’t fully bear those costs themselves. With ghost jobs, employers get benefits (brand signaling, resume mining, internal optics) while job seekers eat the time, emotional, and sometimes financial cost of chasing something that never really existed.

Re: Tech employment now significantly worse than the 2008 or 2020 recessions

#40

Post by salawat »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #25
ICantFeelMyToes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but there is also a massive proliferation of ghost jobs. Dirty secret for a bunch of Series A places

I see everyone say this but what is the point of making a fake job opening? Are companies just doing that to see if a unicorn applies?

As a hiring manager, I have to write the job description. HR is responsible for posting the damn thing where people can see it, then into the ATS you go. We also know recruiting posts can be a source of competitive intelligence and signal for investors. We don't want it used that way, but we're aware of it. Bit of a dirty secret. That means, alas, the only people hurt are the applicants looking for work. I'll work through the queue when I have a billet to fill, but otherwise... You're shouting into the void. Not sure who is responsible for reporting headcount increases to BLS, but I've actively looked and never found the person. So... I honestly have no idea how they get their numbers unless there is a pipeline from the major payroll processors; which feels kinda ick if you think about it.
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