Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 693 posts

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#511

Post by reactordev »

bluGill wrote: post #472
lotsofpulp wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tell the younger generation the same thing. Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party. Your older self will thank you. 401k max is $24,500. How much do you expect a person to earn to be able to max it out? And what percentile income is that at the bottom and top of the age range you consider “young”? https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-age-calculator/ Tldr: you are telling almost every 20 to 30 year…

A younger person shouldn't max out their 401k unless they are rich. When you are young time works for you and so a maxed out 401k is a very large retirement in the future (which you might not even live to see!). The max is useful for older people who didn't start young.

Worst advice ever. Maxing out early is like throwing a boulder down a mountain as opposed to a stone. The sooner you start the better in the long run.

What they have to avoid is cashing it out when times get hard.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#512

Post by reactordev »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #383
reactordev wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say this. Money comes, money goes, that’s life. Ideally you’re smart enough to save and invest to weather these storms but for those (like myself) that are still working hard post 40, we know it’s all part of the game. I tell the younger generation the same thing. Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party. Your older self will thank you.

> I tell the younger generation the same thing. Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party. Your older self will thank you. 401k max is $24,500. How much do you expect a person to earn to be able to max it out? And what percentile income is that at the bottom and top of the age range you consider “young”? https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-age-calculator/ Tldr: you are telling almost every 20 to 30 year…

If you are offered a 401k, you have the means to max it out. People who make less than $60k aren’t usually offered 401k’s.

I’m not telling you to forgo partying. I’m telling you to pay yourself first, before you do. Don’t max out a credit card for a trip. Don’t cover the table’s check when you only have $200. Be responsible, but still have fun.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#513

Post by actionfromafar »

quickthrowman wrote: post #459
shubb wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net worth is a funny metric. Joe has a 300k house with 100k equity and 200k mortgage. He has 100k in stocks in a 401k. Net worth negative 100k. Pete has $300 in his cheques account, and isn't eligible for loans or mortgage. Net worth positive $300 Obviously Joe is richer than Pete though.

> Obviously Joe is richer than Pete though. Yeah, because Joe’s net worth is $200,000 and Pete’s is $300 House equity = current value - mortgage balance You subtracted the mortgage twice, so your math is off by $200,000.00

Substitute some numbers until the example makes sense, the point is that net worth can be misleading.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#514

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

FitchApps wrote: post #501
fooker wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, assuming you could invest 100k out of your 170k per year into companies you know were doing well on tech from 2015, how much would you have ? (say: AMD, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Facebook) The answer is about 10M, which is not that far from what I estimated, even without including Nvidia. Now add in house price appreciation. There are plenty of people who have managed to do this, from fairly normal tech jobs.

170k after taxes leaves you with about 130k net, maybe 140k; if you live in a big city and have a family, it's almost impossible to save 100 grand of that 140k. More realistic you would save about 50k and still come out ok, but lets be realistic noone is saving 100k from 170k gross salary

$110K a year is more realistic after taxes and then you have housing, health insurance, car insurance, food, clothes, school expenses, etc.

You’re not realistically saving $50K a year.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#515

Post by shagie »

ecshafer wrote: post #503
AIorNot wrote: post #260

Well as a single datum: After I got laid off in late 2023 I had a devil of a time finding work (despite having AI experience) to the point my unemployment ran out - And I was 20 years as a dev and tech lead and full stack, (never had trouble finding work) including stints as a leading EM and CTO, I’ve been an industry award winning innovation lead,a digital studio director, switching tech stacks and cloud certs all m…

Are you in a major tech market (SF? Seattle?) I was a laid off in the beginning of the year from my remote job, landed several interviews, and I found a new job in I was able to land interviews with some remote companies. I used to work at Shopify, a got some interviews at Ruby shops from that. Some possibilities: 1. Ageism, this is a distinct possibility. 2. You held very senior positions. I think a lot of people do…

> 2. You held very senior positions. I think a lot of people don't like hiring people that were more senior than them. So that CTO is being held as a negative. They are not saying "Hey I get the experience of an EM and a CTO in a Senior Engineer for a bargain salary", they are worried you will overshadow them. This is sub optimal behavior for companies.

---

Not only is there the overshadow worry, but there's the overqualified for the position.

You were CTO once, and now you're a IC again... are you looking for a CTO position still?

I had an experience (post dot com crash) where the team hired a senior engineer... who left the team within a year to be an engineering manager somewhere else in the company and our team was back to interviewing for the position again.

From our team's perspective we wasted the time interviewing and onboarding a person when they job-hopped (even within the company) in under a year. Despite being qualified as a senior engineer it wasn't what they wanted to do.

To that end, overly qualified candidates are similarly risky to hire as under qualified ones.

I've also been in situations where someone in a senior or management position is hired with previous Big Tech or startup experience and tries to make the regional retail company's internals into a Big Tech engineering department which ended poorly for everyone involved.

---

To your third point, the desire to stay on the coasts and around Big Tech companies is also a thing. Being willing to move to and within the midwestern states (some companies have return to office... others don't want to create a tax nexus in another state - if you don't hire anyone in California or Colorado you don't have to follow those laws... so hire everyone in one state and only deal with one state's payroll tax and insurance options).

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#516

Post by _yb2s »

deadbabe wrote: post #499
_yb2s wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If botox is required to secure an engineering job when you have a long proven track record of solving hard technical problems successfully- the company is a fraud and the jobs are fake.

“Companies” don’t hire people, a few human individuals acting autonomously, with their own beliefs and biases, are ultimately responsible for bringing someone new onboard. Once you hit 40s just get the botox anyway. Looks better. Only lasts 3 months or so. Good for a few rounds of interviews.

The way hiring works is a reflection of company culture. If they can’t execute a hiring process that hires the most skilled and competent instead of the youngest and best looking, guess what kind of coworkers you will have to deal with?

Anyways, I am in my 40s- I am an amateur strength athlete and eat healthy and already look almost inappropriately healthy and youthful for a sedentary job- enough so that I feel sometimes I’m not taken as seriously because I don’t look like a stereotypical elder nerd.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#517

Post by vannevar »

cal_dent wrote: post #180
vannevar wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...but out in the official data, and less so but still true in the real world, things are still bobbing along. I don't know that the official data shows things "still bobbing along." The graph of monthly employment numbers looks like it has a decidedly downward trend overall. September jobs were unexpectedly high, but we've had a lot of subsequent downward revisions and it may happen again for September. https://www…

looks like a return to post GFC pre-covid trend. That's sort of what I mean, we've obviously come from a boom-ish market and correcting. How much of it now is the shock that now isnt the same as the 2021-2023 market v this is the start of a real downturn. I don't know

Don't be fooled by the scaling due to the covid spike, 2025 looks quite a bit worse than pre-covid. It looks more like pre-2008.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#518

Post by jpadkins »

bluGill wrote: post #472
lotsofpulp wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tell the younger generation the same thing. Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party. Your older self will thank you. 401k max is $24,500. How much do you expect a person to earn to be able to max it out? And what percentile income is that at the bottom and top of the age range you consider “young”? https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-age-calculator/ Tldr: you are telling almost every 20 to 30 year…

A younger person shouldn't max out their 401k unless they are rich. When you are young time works for you and so a maxed out 401k is a very large retirement in the future (which you might not even live to see!). The max is useful for older people who didn't start young.

This is bad advice. Max out 401k early. Compounding growth is how you get rich / FI. The earlier you start, the more time to compound.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#519

Post by lotsofpulp »

reactordev wrote: post #512
lotsofpulp wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tell the younger generation the same thing. Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party. Your older self will thank you. 401k max is $24,500. How much do you expect a person to earn to be able to max it out? And what percentile income is that at the bottom and top of the age range you consider “young”? https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-age-calculator/ Tldr: you are telling almost every 20 to 30 year…

If you are offered a 401k, you have the means to max it out. People who make less than $60k aren’t usually offered 401k’s. I’m not telling you to forgo partying. I’m telling you to pay yourself first, before you do. Don’t max out a credit card for a trip. Don’t cover the table’s check when you only have $200. Be responsible, but still have fun.

>If you are offered a 401k, you have the means to max it out.

Given rent, saving for house downpayment, student loan payments, auto loan payments, and possible childcare/healthcare costs, I don’t think we live in the same reality (based on income statistics). Perhaps you are only referring to doctors/software engineers/lawyers/IB/PE employees?

>I’m not telling you to forgo partying. I’m telling you to pay yourself first, before you do. Don’t max out a credit card for a trip. Don’t cover the table’s check when you only have $200. Be responsible, but still have fun.

This is very different than:

>Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#520

Post by ramesh31 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #157
reactordev wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say this. Money comes, money goes, that’s life. Ideally you’re smart enough to save and invest to weather these storms but for those (like myself) that are still working hard post 40, we know it’s all part of the game. I tell the younger generation the same thing. Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party. Your older self will thank you.

You telling someone with 50k in debt, turning in 1000's or job apps struggling to find a job they studied 4+ years for and not being able to even pay rent to "just save"... is exactly how we got into this situation to begin with.

> turning in 1000's of job apps struggling to find a job

This is the entire problem. It's called job hunting, not job fishing. I.e. you should be seeking out specific exact positions that you know are worthwhile and tailoring yourself for them, not casting a net and hoping.

Post reply on HN