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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

#61

Post by linuxftw »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #55
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...

All of that is true, but it was true before Elon took over, now they just have fewer employees to pay, so if they can turn the advertising back around, they'll be in a better cashflow situation.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#62

Post by jorts »

Pepe1vo wrote: 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…

I would assume many of the comments are anecdotes based on their situation.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#63

Post by ctvo »

Pepe1vo wrote: 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…

The job market isn't uniformed across all experience level and roles.

You didn't specify, but I'm going to assume you're not new in your career. It's just fine in the US for staff engineer+ experience level also. New engineers? Mid levels? Probably less so, and probably similar in The Netherlands.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#64

Post by itsoktocry »

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…

>I would have gladly accepted less money than I had made before. I don't really need it. The work is what interests me.

We need an acceptable way to express this, without desperately extolling you'll take less money. I think a lot of us "old guys" are in the same boat; I don't need 150k, I'll take 100k if the work is interesting, and I'm more likely to be loyal to boot.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#65

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

linuxftw wrote: post #58
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I was a manager. That's actually a problem.

I don't lie; especially in my profession. It's a thing. I know that personal Integrity is considered a "quaint anachronism," in today's world, but I won't compromise on that.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#66

Post by wbshaw »

itsoktocry wrote: post #52
genmud wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is not entirely true. Whereas a company will likely bank that profit, employees are more likely to put that income back into the economy which provides a multiplier effect of the income in overall economic growth.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#67

Post by rngname22 »

orochimaaru wrote: post #36
deathpanels wrote: post #25

Everyone is talking about layoffs and lack of hiring, but I've found the problem to be that companies are cutting costs by silently increasing workload on existing employees. Everyone is getting burnt out trying to keep a 300-person engineering team running on only 100 head count. That leads to more incidents, slower delivery, less innovation, longer hours. Even those who are still employed are seeing working conditi…

I think a lot of big-co are setting up subsidiaries overseas and hiring there. It's different from the contract based offshoring model that happened in 2007 or so which had rather disastrous results. I know my company has and plans to have almost 1/2 its IT workforce as direct employees overseas.

What industry?

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#68

Post by bryanlarsen »

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.

According to the latest jobs report, average wages are up 4.1% in 2023.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#69

Post by lhnz »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #55
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...

These issues are caused by (1) the buy-out by Elon Musk involving a large amount of debt, and (2) Elon Musk annoying "woke" advertisers who have subsequently deserted the platform.

The actual engineering hasn't been as affected or rather while it has been affected it hasn't been affected to the magnitude that you might expect given the size of the lay-offs.

Re: IT employment grew by just 700 jobs in 2023

#70

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

itsoktocry wrote: post #64
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I would have gladly accepted less money than I had made before. I don't really need it. The work is what interests me. We need an acceptable way to express this, without desperately extolling you'll take less money. I think a lot of us "old guys" are in the same boat; I don't need 150k, I'll take 100k if the work is interesting, and I'm more likely to be loyal to boot.

> I'm more likely to be loyal

The funny thing, is that I've been told that "Old people are just cruising to retirement," but it's OK to establish your entire business infrastructure on the idea that your young, energetic, engineers will not remain at the company for more than 18 months.

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