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My perception is strictly anecdotal, based on my experience in the US, in the medium size city where I live, which is neither a tech hub nor a tech desert. I s

My perception is strictly anecdotal, based on my experience in the US, in the medium size city where I live, which is neither a tech hub nor a tech desert. I still feel fairly confident that if the unemployment rate among programmers in the US was to rise to, for example, an enormous 15%, I would be able to keep myself among the 85% that remains employed. I wonder if your experience, which is quite different from mine, has to do with the differences between labor laws in the US and the UK. In the US, programmers are virtually all non-union, and employers can be fairly choosy in who they keep and who they get rid of. Is it perhaps the case in the UK that, by law, most downsizing has to be seniority-based rather than merit-based?

anexprogrammer 10y ago
Very much anecdotal, and I'm sure I saw people hit harder than many in quiet, unexciting companies who just kept working - I was contracting as were a fair number of my friends. It felt like a nationwide hard stop - there was almost nothing but agency fishing expeditions going on jobserve. > fairly confident ... I would be able to keep myself among the 85% that remains employed. For my whole career upto the dot com bust in 01 I'd have confidently agreed. After 2.5 years struggling to get work and seeing the same with skilled friends I realised how much was down to luck. By the time I got work again many opinions had changed. I still have much of the frugality. Certainly I knew of US people having issue, and I was surprised to read recently on HN [1] someone widely known having a very similar experience. Not sure about laws - I don't think so, it seemed to affect everything. Definitely not unions though. Unions and IT is rare, though there are some union members in govt, or old industries. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218583

anexprogrammer 10y ago

Very much anecdotal, and I'm sure I saw people hit harder than many in quiet, unexciting companies who just kept working - I was contracting as were a fair number of my friends. It felt like a nationwide hard stop - there was almost nothing but agency fishing expeditions going on jobserve. > fairly confident ... I would be able to keep myself among the 85% that remains employed. For my whole career upto the dot com bust in 01 I'd have confidently agreed. After 2.5 years struggling to get work and seeing the same with skilled friends I realised how much was down to luck. By the time I got work again many opinions had changed. I still have much of the frugality. Certainly I knew of US people having issue, and I was surprised to read recently on HN [1] someone widely known having a very similar experience. Not sure about laws - I don't think so, it seemed to affect everything. Definitely not unions though. Unions and IT is rare, though there are some union members in govt, or old industries. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12218583