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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?

#681

Post by AIorNot »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #648
donatj wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of just straight out NO's I've gotten has been surprising and disheartening. I've been a developer for 20 years and genuinely don't think I've gotten an outright "no" before this year. Usually just no response. I've gotten maybe eight or nine actual rejections this year. It's honestly worse, emotionally. Ideally I want a job outside my wheelhouse to learn and move forward, but it seems like no one these da…

Before COVID I would regularly apply for jobs, almost always get them, and decline largely to keep my interview skills fresh. Well, wait, isn't this just karma in action, then? Sounds like you deliberately wasted a lot of other peoples' valuable time.

No, because software engineering interviews are a specific skill and you need to be on top of it - eg leetcode, sys design and soft skills and hiring managers are making everything harder

Ie its a race to the bottom - there is no gold standard for a productive software engineer who is transferable to another company that really people trust

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

#682

Post by AIorNot »

ponector wrote: post #361
mschuster91 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ideally I want a job outside my wheelhouse to learn and move forward, but it seems like no one these days is interested in any sort of training. No one has the resources left to pay for it, that's the thing. Clients are cutting budgets because no one is buying their stuff, so everyone is looking for seniors and above only, and replacing juniors/intermediates with AI. Trickle-down ideology is now beginning to eat it…

>> No one has the resources left to pay for it Record profits reported by tech companies says the opposite. Money are there, but no will to spend them on people. We had multiple layoffs recently so parent company could report a billion USD in quarterly profits.

We’ve effectively short circuited the corporate profits to stockholder route - ignoring employees rights, benefits or simple human loyalty and decency

Pray that Darth Trump alters it no further

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

#683

Post by AIorNot »

yodsanklai wrote: post #393
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 work in a FAANG as a SWE. I'm not the on selecting candidates, but I do interview a lot of them. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a 50+ year old candidate. 99% of the candidates have less than 10 year experience, and are in their 20s or 30s. So yes, ageism is real. I suppose the company gets away with it by saying they look for candidates with 3-10 years of experience? At that stage, I think I would pass Leetcode wi…

Yeah forget it if you look old - old people like me might have to put on our glasses

Linus Torovalds is 55 - so he’s too old right? Hes about dad age for most software engineer teams in FAANG and startups…

Software engineering team culture is young and male skewed for years-

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

#684

Post by AIorNot »

creer wrote: post #678
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…

"Now it's different". Is it really? One aspect of these stories is that we all do age and we do climb into higher positions. So we run into "too old" and "too qualified" and "will leave asap for something better". And the reason is not that the economy or job market are different. The reason is that we are older. Nothing wrong with both happening at the same time but this "I never ran into this problem before" does h…

Not sure what you are on about - I have a giant network in linkedin and it did help me find a job eventually…

You only cultivate a regional network if you live in the same spot for years - i moved from the south to Seattle - Im not moving back to the South- so my network is mostly useless

I have for example a network with OpenAI, Google and Anthropic - all it got me was getting to the team match stage with Google followed by denial after almost 6 months in the interview process

As for OpenAI and Anthropic you need to have success in the AI startup world+network+ be young (old is only allowed id you have massive career success eg VP at Google or Amazon)

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

#685

Post by johnea »

guywithahat wrote: post #572
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.

It's funny how everyone wants to get into deliveries as they get older, my dad who's been an engineer for decades talks about it a lot. Something about walking around and doing things really appeals to people as they reach the end of their engineering career

You mean how people want to start walking around and doing things after sitting on their ass in front of a computer for 40 years?

Yea, I'm there with your dad...

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

#686

Post by ragingregard »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #606
ragingregard wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really appreciate your comment, literally the only comment in this long sub-thread that picked up on the nonsensical numbers fooker put out. Realistically fooker's investment strategy into NDXT of 100k over 10 years would have produced around $2.5M depending on exact timing in the year and partitioning of that 100k. Way less than $15M nonsense. Also would have required extreme conviction alike the crypto types and co…

Counting on 10% returns long term is way to aggressive especially when you have to consider sequence of returns risks during withdrawals. Even 5% is not conservative enough while you are in the withdrawal phase. If I had $5 million of investments outside of my home, would I work? Maybe? My job is far from stressful, I work from home, I “retired” my wife over 5 years ago when she was 44 eight years into our marriage s…

> Counting on 10% returns long term is way to aggressive especially when you have to consider sequence of returns risks during withdrawals

Yes though the propose is not to retire. There's better things to do with your life (IMO) than work a standard 9-5 job for some corporation once you've accumulated sufficient wealth to have financial independence.

> Even 5% is not conservative enough while you are in the withdrawal phase.

Assuming you spend 5% per year. 5M@5% is 250k, 200k+ after tax for CG + eligible divs. That's a lot of money to spend every year, more than most families get to earn thru their labor yearly. Can be secured against downturns with higher 4%+ bond allocations too. 5M is financial independence for vast majority of households. 2.5M can be as well for many if their baseline spend remains at 100k.

> All of my friends still work so what could I possibly do with my free time that I don’t do now?

Financial independence provides vast opportunities for those with ideas but lacking time. There's a reason most businesses are pursued by those who have financial wealth on their side.

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

#687

Post by chickensong »

klatchex_too wrote: post #633
chickensong wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boredom is a personality trait IMHO. Some of us never get bored, there's only lack of time and funds for hobbies and exploring.

Boredom was real when I was a kid, pre-internet. Now I never get bored. Things have changed, but yeah, boredom used to be a real thing that people experienced no matter what their personality traits were.

You seem to be implying that the internet has cured boredom, yet there are plenty of people that claim to be bored regardless. I'm from pre-internet as well, and have never suffered from boredom, so your absolute statement just isn't true.

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

#688

Post by aorloff »

array_key_first wrote: post #636
ux266478 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's an appropriate conclusion to draw from a single point of data.

I think it's still a mostly correct conclusion. Pretty much everywhere you look across services, they've been cooked to their bones. Have you noticed that supermarkets seem to have, like, 1/5th the employees they did before? Since when is 1 open lane on a Saturday night and a 30 minute wait acceptable? Well, since we've accepted it. Everything kind of sucks and barely works, but it doesn't matter, because we ultimate…

Yes but in construction the real order flow is delivery, which is why Home Depot bought GMS

And for that, around here they are my second or third call after FBM or MacArthur

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

#690

Post by kaffekaka »

mbfg wrote: post #221
ac29 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you waste half your groceries its still cheaper than eating out. And wasting that much is difficult to do, most staples will last weeks to years without risk of spoilage. There are some fresh fruits and vegetables that are exceptions because they dont take well to refrigeration or freezing but really not much.

also, there is the case of the mismatched quantities for shopping, ie, the old hot dogs come in 10 packs, and rolls in 8 backs, etc.

I don't understand, you can still eat the remaining hot dogs, just without a roll. It's not like you have to throw them away, wasting money.

Buying groceries, making food and eating at home is much cheaper than even the cheapest restaurants.

EDIT: realized I was late to the discussion. Disregard my post.

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