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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

#411
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 lot of US companies prioritising hiring in EU don't need to pay for medical insurance or it's way cheeper plus wages are way lower.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#412

What happened to IT is the same thing that happened to blue-collar workers. They’ll use you until they actively create a lower cost labor market.

“there’s a power in the union..”

Only if the union shop can ship faster than the non-union shop.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The union can force an all-or-nothing decision, but some companies can and will easily choose "nothing" and keep only the overseas developers, not the local unionized ones.

I think there would be too many programmers who would be proud to take the jobs of other programmers trying to unionize. There are a lot of anti-unionists and Libertarian minded programmers in the US.

Libertarians aren't anti-union, they're anti-government enforced unions.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#414
post #357

> 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…

I wonder how many “unfilled” roles are ghost jobs. I keep seeing the same roles re-posted or just never filled.

I'm an unemployed staff/sr level software engineer who's been unemployed for 4 months. The only interview I got in the past 3 months was due to an internal referral. I'm seeing a lot of similar re-posts.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#415
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downside is for people disabled. Maybe they aren't a terrible dev but they aren't a great dev either. If they're on par with outsourced labor, they aren't so safe. But what else can they do? If I lost my job right now, I'd be totally fucked. I'd end up working at Walmart. Masters degrees might as well be toilet paper.

I remember driving through West Virginia with my parents to visit family as a kid, and my dad was lamenting the fact that its full of the haves and the have nots, with the distinct implication that the haves did something wrong to end up there, and the have nots would be just fine if it wasn't for those pesky rich people. I was just left thinking that if life was haves and have nots, shouldn't you spend your time try…

If talking percentiles, you probably mean 80th percentile instead of 20%, and similarly for the other number - 90, not 10.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that make sense? Canadians are cheaper to hire than Americans but not by that much, right?

In the Google pay scale, not a huge difference really. At least for engineering. Or at least some years ago when there was an internal spreadsheet circulating. Big part of compensation is in RSUs, in USD. Now... cost of living in Toronto is as high as the Bay Area. I wonder if the above commenter meant Waterloo (hour from Toronto), because that is where the bulk of the SWE staff is.

Canadian compensation for Google engineers AFAIK is about 60%-70% what it is in the Bay Area.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#417
How much of this do you think involves senior programmers using LLM and AI-generated code to do a lot of the grunt work, thereby not needing to either employ, outsource or train? I am amazed how much more productive I have become with the leading LLMs, especially with specialized full-stack tasks that I do not do every day. Many things that I regularly outsourced once a year I now just get an LLM to assist. Could it be that this is more of a factor already than the economic factors indicate?

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#418

While a vast majority of comments here seem to indicate a lot of jobs being moved offshore, there are massive layoffs (even entities shutting shop in India. Github closed its office here, Twitter reduced its presence dramatically etc. Where I work, there are no back-fills for voluntary attrition or restructuring). Layoffs are a taboo of some kind here too, affected are treated as "non-performers" and recruiters will…

I thought offshoring happened 20 years ago. I think today, it is more about aishoring, or the dream that it will be possible to do a lot with very few people.

Oh absolutely. The term is new (aishoring). There is chaos though (initial days of aishoring ?) The challenge I see is the following (or the management thought I see is the following)

a) Hire some Junior devs, track them through spyware on the laptops b) Enterprise ChatGPT, Bard, c) CoPilot d) Spin features out

Some senior folk reviews the code (we pay him top dollar, so 18 hours is reality he/she has to wake up to) As someone to whom this happened (I did not sign up, it was normal till management changed), I can tell you it made me go crazy. 85 hour work weeks (weekends included) took a toll and I quit and took a lower paying position (1 year ago).

Sadly its not getting better, Was conversing with a colleague recently and he told me his new task was to use GenAI to migrate IMS to Java microservices. Kind of chuckled to myself (console by saying: it gets worse, before it gets better)

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#419
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still horrible and lots of people at large companies are worried of getting laid off any second.

I am, and several friends in F500s and/or Big4 consulting are too. Esp. the consultants, where they're waiting for the other shoe to drop every quarter.

I am a Senior/Staff level software engineer who has been unemployed for 4 months. Best advice is to live way below your means and have great savings. I get a little freaked out at the job market and not having all but 1 interview in the past few months, but I don't feel that stressed because I'm ok financially for now.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#420
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…

Here in Canada it's pretty hopeless. Basically no prospects on the horizon at all even willing to work on-site.
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