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Up until a year ago, the correct answer to "Where are all the non-web jobs?" was "China". Stats for the USA from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bl
by lkrubner 11y ago
Up until a year ago, the correct answer to "Where are all the non-web jobs?" was "China".
Stats for the USA from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-programmers.htm http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/c...
1990 Number of Jobs 565,000
2010 Number of Jobs 363,100
2012 Number of Jobs 343,700
All kidding aside, the correct answer is still "China". Computer programming jobs follow employment in manufacturing. If employment in manufacturing is rising in one country, but falling in another, the computer programming jobs will be rising in the first country but falling in the second country.
This year, even the Chinese economy is slowing down. But it is important to keep the long-term in mind. Over the last 30 years there has been a dramatic decline in the number of all types of computer programming jobs in the USA.
There is a tiny subset of the industry that is growing, and we associate these with the startups in San Francisco and New York. But so far these startups have not created enough jobs to offset the jobs lost due to other factors.
This suggests that there must be a vast reservoir or programmers who would like programming jobs, but they can't work as programmers because the jobs have disappeared.
If the numbers were smaller, you could argue that the loss of jobs was due to inaccuracies in the way Bureau of Labor gathers statistics. But the drop from 565,000 jobs to 343,700 is too large to be a spurious blip.
- callinyouin 11y agoI didn't downvote you, but from what I've read (mostly here on HN), there are people in the industry advocating for easier work visas to bring skilled developers into the US to fill a talent vacuum. I'm not sure how accurate that is (I'm going on memory here), but perhaps that's why you were downvoted.
- lkrubner 11y agoIf someone has a source more reliable than the Bureau of Labor Statistics then I am happy to defer to it. But in that case those people should post a link to the source that they regard as more reliable. They should not downvote me simply because they don't like what the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported. The issue of work visas have been discussed many times on Hacker News. The argument has been made, many times, that "to fill a talent vacuum" is an excuse that industry uses to get workers at a lower wage.
- FigBug 11y agoWhat is the difference between a Computer Programmer and a Software Developer? Software Developer has over a million jobs and is growing fast? And then web developer is another category? Are jobs actually disappearing or are they being recategorized?
- bitbuilder 11y agoYou're absolutely right. Most people who called themselves a "Computer Programmer" 20 years ago are now calling themselves a "Software Developer" or "Web Developer", at least if we're going to use the Bureau of Labor Statistics categories. Both of those categories are forecasting double digit growth over the next decade (17% and 27%, respectively).