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IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

wsj.com

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Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#51

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

mk89 wrote: post #30
gedy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah in past 20 years I would receive a job offer from nearly every company I interviewed with. Past few months have been really disappointing with rejections after interviews that I'd normally have said went great.

It's also true that you have now 20+ years of experience. The higher you go, the harder it gets - you might want a different role, etc etc. If on the other hand you're competing with senior sw devs with 5+ years of experience, there could also be other factors to keep in mind (age, ability in very specific tech stacks, etc). I think companies are still hiring, but more focused, unlike in 2021-2022 when they over-hire…

> 20+ years of experience

Welcome to my world.

In-company recruiters are often quite helpful and accommodating, but, as soon as one single tech person gets involved, the temperature drops 30 degrees.

Standalone recruiters send me these breathless emails, extolling my qualifications, but, as soon as they find out my age, they ghost me. I have actually had recruiters hang up on me, as soon as I told them my age. I learned to just mention that up front, to get the ghosting out of the way.

Apparently, they aren't very good at math. I list 30 years+ experience, yet they seem to think that I'm under 35.

After a while, I just gave up, and accepted that I'm retired.

It's not the money; it's the "culture." Many folks, much younger, and much more inexperienced, are paid more than I ever made, in my entire career. I would have gladly accepted less money than I had made before. I don't really need it. The work is what interests me.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#52

Post by itsoktocry »

genmud wrote: post #44
dsm4ck wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT jobs are only a part of the total jobs picture.

Yes, but I would be interested in the gross income of IT vs other occupations and how that is impacting overall economy. For example, if you drop 2 IT jobs, but each one is 150k, but you create 4x 60k jobs, it looks like you added 2 jobs, but in reality, you removed 60k worth of payroll income.

>For example, if you drop 2 IT jobs, but each one is 150k, but you create 4x 60k jobs, it looks like you added 2 jobs, but in reality, you removed 60k worth of payroll income.

But the company saves 60k, so the net (to the economy) is the same.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#53

Post by taude »

GenerWork wrote: post #46

I believe it. I work in the UX space, and I'd be shocked if total employment grew in 2023. I know lots of skilled designers who've been out of work for multiple months, and people in the UX research space are faring even worse.

I used to believe UX was immune to off-shoring, but that's not the case anymore, either.

1.5 years ago, we posted a UX job and got maybe a couple resumes. Three months ago, we posted a UX job and got 900 resumes in just a couple days....

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#54

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gedy wrote: post #24
quechimba wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never had problems finding work, until now. It used to be easy. Recruiters used to call me at night. Now they ghost me.

Yeah in past 20 years I would receive a job offer from nearly every company I interviewed with. Past few months have been really disappointing with rejections after interviews that I'd normally have said went great.

The higher you go, the more expensive you get. And the fewer places see the value you bring compared to a cheaper "senior sw dev" with 5 years of experience.

If you want to be paid more than someone with 5 years, you have to generate more value than they do, and you have to persuade the hiring manager that you can generate more value. The fraction of places that can see that is smaller than the fraction that can see the value of a senior over a junior. (On the other hand, for those places, the competition for the jobs is also less severe - there aren't tons of people with 20 years of experience on the street at any given time.)

So it takes longer than it did when you had 5 years of experience. But keep looking. There are places that will see the value in what you provide.

The job category you're looking for is "principal software engineer" or "staff software engineer".

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#55

Post by thinkingtoilet »

frontman1988 wrote: post #29

Elon showed with Twitter how you don't need hordes of engineers to run a company. He laid off 90% of the staff and still the website is doing alright (at least engineering wise). More engineers lead to more useless bullshit being created(like at Google). A lean mean team seems the way to go.

Twitter is facing mounting debt, large quarterly loses, and lost tens of billions of dollars in valuation. I wouldn't use that as a success story.

From the WSJ, so no complaining about liberal bias.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-elon-musks-twitter-faces-mo...

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#56

Post by GenerWork »

taude wrote: post #53
GenerWork wrote: post #46

I believe it. I work in the UX space, and I'd be shocked if total employment grew in 2023. I know lots of skilled designers who've been out of work for multiple months, and people in the UX research space are faring even worse.

I used to believe UX was immune to off-shoring, but that's not the case anymore, either. 1.5 years ago, we posted a UX job and got maybe a couple resumes. Three months ago, we posted a UX job and got 900 resumes in just a couple days....

This has been the case for practically all of 2023. We posted an entry level UX position and got over 1000 applicants in a week. Even senior positions (what I was looking for) are flooded with applicants that total in the mid-hundreds. I was laid off at the end of the holidays in 2023 and only found my current position through sheer luck of networking.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#57

Post by Pepe1vo »

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 comment on whether this horrible job market is a US specific situation or whether I'm living in some kind of weird bubble?

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#58

Post by linuxftw »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #51
mk89 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also true that you have now 20+ years of experience. The higher you go, the harder it gets - you might want a different role, etc etc. If on the other hand you're competing with senior sw devs with 5+ years of experience, there could also be other factors to keep in mind (age, ability in very specific tech stacks, etc). I think companies are still hiring, but more focused, unlike in 2021-2022 when they over-hire…

> 20+ years of experience Welcome to my world. In-company recruiters are often quite helpful and accommodating, but, as soon as one single tech person gets involved, the temperature drops 30 degrees. Standalone recruiters send me these breathless emails, extolling my qualifications, but, as soon as they find out my age, they ghost me. I have actually had recruiters hang up on me, as soon as I told them my age. I lear…

Maybe try changing over to management? You might have a shot at a non-tech centric company.

Also, don't be above lying about your age.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#59

Post by itsoktocry »

kypro wrote: post #37
frontman1988 wrote: post #29

Elon showed with Twitter how you don't need hordes of engineers to run a company. He laid off 90% of the staff and still the website is doing alright (at least engineering wise). More engineers lead to more useless bullshit being created(like at Google). A lean mean team seems the way to go.

You're getting downvoted for this, but factually what you're saying is correct. He did lay of 90% of the staff and although people have claimed Twitter will die any minute, it hasn't. Whether or not a lean team is the way to go perhaps remains to be seen, but what I'd say is that my anecdotal opinion on this is that the majority of engineers are a liability and assuming that 10x more engineers means 10x more work don…

>He did lay of 90% of the staff and although people have claimed Twitter will die any minute, it hasn't.

It lost 3/4 of its value, partially because it's losing advertisers, partially because they fired everyone outside of engineering.

I'm an avid Twitter user to this day; do you think it's thriving, just because the website is still up? It has more spam, bots and porn than ever.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#60

Post by mc32 »

hprotagonist wrote: post #39
Podgajski wrote: post #20

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..”

IT is one of the easiest to off-shore; how would a union help?
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