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

551–560 of 693 posts

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

#551

Post by [deleted] »

dtech wrote: post #218
agentultra wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We haven’t passed the stage where we convince policy makers to stop dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We’re not going to convince anyone to keep hiring software developers. I think we ought to be keeping people trained and employed but it seems we’re not on the winning side here.

> I think we ought to be keeping people trained and employed I never understood this sentiment. We don't have a massive manual weaving industry anymore, 95%+ of people used to be farmers in 1900. Tech comes and replaces humans, and the transition can be extremely painful especially for the people replaced, but ultimately it's better than keeping people artificially employed in obsolete jobs. (I don't think SWE will b…

[deleted]

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

#552

Post by theplatman »

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…

can't comment on west coast but from perspective in NYC, i think the market for SWEs willing to work in office here is very good. might be different since there's lots of different industries hiring for SWE roles in addition to typical tech "startups" here.

i've noticed that folks who want to work remote having a tougher time if they're looking for tech jobs. makes sense if you look for jobs at a local non-tech company, you might have better luck.

generally seems like remote jobs have the most competition so if you can find jobs localized to your market, you will have more luck there.

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

#553

Post by AIorNot »

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…

Yeah I get that I have all sorts of resumes (tailored to the job I apply for) and I took off the CTO and now am using Sr AI engineer

Still very very hard to get noticed

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

#554

Post by AIorNot »

shagie wrote: post #515
ecshafer wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 over…

Yes region matters

My career started in the south and then we moved to Seattle - it feels like everyone is laid off in Seattle - I could probably find something in the south again

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

#555

Post by bluGill »

ramesh31 wrote: post #520
johnnyanmac wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is value in both. Sometimes fishing will find a great job at a place you have never heard of. Often hunters come home at the end of the day having got nothing.

Hunting is still your better bet overall. figure out who has a need and position yourself to fill it. This also takes a lot more time to pull off than just sending 1000 resumes, and there is no guarantee. there is generally a mix of course, you start by casting a net to see what is there, and then when there is a potential bite you start tailoring your resume to that potential. Not all leads will result in something. Who you know is always important.

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

#556

Post by dizlexic »

ethin wrote: post #216
johnnyanmac wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm literally one of these people. My only work experience is a GSoC internship in 2021. I have yet to get hired and I've been looking for 4 years, graduated in 2022 right before ChatGPT came out. I've had no choice but to become a generalist as a consequence, and over the last year or two my interviews have dropped to zero and absolutely none of the advice I've gotten from anybody has helped. Just my personal experi…

Probably not helpful, but as a high school dropout and self-taught developer in the industry since 2012. It seems like new grads are being stuck in a similar situation to what the self taughts had to go through to break into a job. Companies care about your work-related experience and dgaf about your college experience. The advice I have is build and contract. Focus on projects and results. If worse comes to worse just set up an LLC and say you've been employed as a developer there for the last 3+ years.

Hustle culture.

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

#557

Post by godelski »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #546
lan321 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this is more true in the sense that when they don't care about money you can get them below market value and not that they are better. I find the most valuable employees to be the financially literate ones. The ones who're constantly thinking about the money aspect. 'Will we get more customers?' 'Will they be more likely to stay with us?' 'Are we screwing ourselves out of sales by offering to host a server for…

I have had 10 jobs over 30 years and I am now at only the third company where I gave two shits about the company’s success or saw it more than just a stepping stone to my n+1 company. I agree with you completely. They can just keep giving me cost of living raises and respect my experience and opinions (not saying they always have to go along with them) and I will be the last person here if they shut the lights off. I…

I think that's an important thing to note here, where the loyalty lies. Viewing from the lens of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy it's clear you're loyal to the goals of the company more than the organization of company. Which in that case yes, I agree those are the best employees

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

#558

Post by mghackerlady »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #203
jeffbee wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the growth we already had in 2025 you'd have to nuke LA to end the year with a decline.

https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2025/0... Most population growth was due to immigration for a while, and immigration (for obvious reasons in 2025) is way, way down. https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-us-population-could-shri... what's your report? >you'd have to nuke LA Let's not give this administration ideas, please.

If we're thinking of nuking places in CA, I hope to god it's the valley. Put an end to this AI bs

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

#559

Post by bluGill »

jpadkins wrote: post #518
bluGill wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have known several people who died before they reached 50. I have known a number of others who retired early because the doctor (correctly) said their cancer is incurable - they had 9 months to enjoy all that savings. I knew someone who planed a great retirement, and her health declined such that even though she lived to 76 (just under average) her entire retirement was spent making regular trips to the hospital and even when not in the hospital her pain was such that she couldn't enjoy anything in life (her husband had a few years to enjoy the savings after she died).

If you know for sure exactly how long you will live and how good your quality of life will be then the advice to max out early is probably good. However you don't know - average advice is good for average but if you are an outlier it isn't useful and you don't know. As such you need to compromise and part of that means you enjoy a little more now when you know you can, as opposed to a lot more in the future if you live that long. Exactly what they means is personal of course, but this conflict is why I would suggest a more modest retirement.

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

#560

Post by dizlexic »

My experience is companies are hiring CS grads for helpdesk, and maybe eventually promoting them to what they went to school for.

I'm a self-taught senior. At my current company have only ever been a developer, but everyone I work with started as help desk and got moved to development later. I know this is anecdotal, but they all have CS degrees. I think people still underestimate the glut in inexperienced CS grads we're working through rn.

Post reply on HN