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Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

economist.com

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

#611

Post by shagie »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #603
shagie wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to cancel French immersion teachers? https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=french+language+immer... Or nurses? https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=registered+nurse&city... The problem isn't H-1B. It's H-1B dependent employers gaming the system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B-dependent_employer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62c-h1b-depende...

The gaming is the problem. I don't trust this admin to fix the loopholes. That said, I have no clue why anyone in the US is struggling to find nurses unless they expect RN's to be paid minimum wage or be caged down to fractional work. That just doesn't fly.

Not everyone wants to relocate to rural hospital areas (where they're often most in demand as a fraction of the total workers). The wages are often tied to what insurance (and medicare) can reimburse and that rate isn't necessarily going up fast enough to properly staff hospitals.

Bigger ones in the cities with more expensive procedures can afford it better. The smaller hospitals an hour or two drive away from a city are the ones that are hurting the most.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/11/14/how-trumps-100k...

> Frederick Health Hospital in rural Frederick County, Maryland, is ground zero for the hurdles the new fee has created. The hospital is the only emergency room in a county that’s approximately 650 square miles in size. Patients would have to drive as far as 50 miles to get to another facility.

> “We see about 70,000 to 80,000 emergency department visits — one of the busiest emergency departments in the state,” said Jamie White, chief nursing officer at Frederick Health.

> Not only is her hospital one of the busiest in the state, it’s also chronically short-staffed. White said it can’t compete with salaries at hospitals in urban areas or with jobs that allow for more work-life-balance.

Wage suppression? Maybe. But it's not "raise wages" that is an option - its "close the hospital".

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

#612

Post by BergAndCo »

theplatman wrote: post #552
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…

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 compa…

So hire me then. I only apply to in-office jobs in NYC and only get an immediate No. No interviews. I'm as qualified as OP.

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

#613

Post by BergAndCo »

eudamoniac wrote: post #564
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…

I don't mean this as a judgement; I am genuinely curious: with a career like that, how are you out of money after twelve months? Do you have unusual expenses? I am 31, currently making $180k (the most I've ever made) as a bog standard 'senior SWE', and I have nearly a million dollars. I am not frugal, I don't think; I just bought a $900 pair of sunglasses last week, and that wasn't a huge outlier expense. I have at l…

Getting replaced by H1Bs after a year and then being out of work for six months (because ageism), four times in a row--that'll do it! Especially now since H1Bs replacing you makes you look like a job-hopper so your job search becomes more impossible every time.

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

#614

Post by BergAndCo »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #384
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…

My brother who is nearly 50 and has worked in tech since the dot com boom, got laid off in January and couldn't find a job until last week. This job, too, was just a contractual position at his old Fortune 50 firm. He has an engineering degree from one of the top 5 engineering colleges in India, a Master's from one of the top 5 engineering schools in the US. He built some of the systems that form the foundation of th…

The dead comment replying to this said "Start your own company," which I hear a lot. The problem is, the #1 thing YC looks for in a founder is they're wealthy enough to absorb risk. You don't take on massive risk from a position of financial insecurity.

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

#615

Post by dvngnt_ »

shagie wrote: post #594
dsmark wrote: post #588

730,000 H-1B holders within the U.S. Can we just cancel this program please?

Why do you want to cancel French immersion teachers? https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=french+language+immer... Or nurses? https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=registered+nurse&city... The problem isn't H-1B. It's H-1B dependent employers gaming the system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B-dependent_employer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62c-h1b-depende...

Those are really small percentages of people. I doubt they were referencing french immersion teachers

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/o... Computer-Related Occupations is more than half

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

#616

Post by BergAndCo »

wmeredith wrote: post #456
protocolture wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No Jira If I was trying to attract intelligent applicants looking for work outside of software engineering, that would be in the headline.

Genuinely curious: How else would you coordinate a large software project? We have 7 teams of 5 working on the same platform and Jira is fine for what we're doing, but I've been at this almost two decades and I haven't used any of the alternatives.

Besides like trello asana redmine or the millions of less-complicated competitors? You literally have developers work on their own modules directly from the spec or work directly with the product owner. You track their work by looking at their commits. You check their progress by looking at how the preview build / staging looks. No overhead of having developers flesh out an entire issue/story (plus sub-issues) and then move it column-to-column across the entire Kanban board. Tracking sub-issues is like counting half-pennies instead of rounding up.

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

#617

Post by rootusrootus »

pyuser583 wrote: post #257
rootusrootus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I have a running joke about her giving up accounting and working for USPS instead. Some days I think she’s serious.

Are they even hiring?

Periodically we get a postcard in our junk mail that says they are. So I guess the answer is yes, at least sometimes.

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

#618

Post by BergAndCo »

guywithahat wrote: post #567
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #20

From my experience, it's grim at the moment for software developer jobs. I got laid off in August and it's been rough. I'm in my early 30s so I can't compare it to 2008, but I've been laid off before and I've never seen it this bad.

I think it's largely industry dependent. Robotics/embedded/etc is actually doing quite well, lots of hiring in space and other fields. More big-data focused fields aren't hiring as much, and it's going to be even harder if you're applying for more senior/VP roles

I apply to embedded/controls engineer roles and get nothing back.

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

#619

Post by tarsinge »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #601
tarsinge wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also hiring, in Europe with very good work/life balance but modest salaries and like the parent I'm also not that impressed with candidates, so to me the other explanation is that candidates have a wildly incorrect estimation of what is a somewhat reasonable pay in 2025. The position with FAANG like salaries have reduced drastically. Companies paying 6 figures just to have the privilege to have an entry level de…

I don't know what the market is like in the EU. I can just tell you North America is really bad with a deluge of talent. And sadly, many can't really live off of an EU salary. breaking six figures in California isn't that impressive unless you are literally single and out of college. But that quickly gets eaten up when rent is 2k+/month and you have school loans to pay off. When you're not paying nearly six figures f…

I understand things are different there, but I thought even in California 6 figures at entry or mid level was a thing only in software engineering, so my point was that premium over other professions was evaporating.

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

#620

Post by mancerayder »

protocolture wrote: post #76
mollusc-engine wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I became a USPS mail carrier instead. Certainly less pay but I love being outside and walking. And no Jira, changing the color of that button, or steeping myself in Frank’s eldritch horror code.

>No Jira If I was trying to attract intelligent applicants looking for work outside of software engineering, that would be in the headline.

What about also excluding "Scrum Masters" and then "Fibonacci Numbers" and two week "sprints"?
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