Yep. There's a proper used car and truck shortage and prices jumped about 45% this past year. There's supposedly a 'tech shortage', but I just went through a j

Yep. There's a proper used car and truck shortage and prices jumped about 45% this past year. There's supposedly a 'tech shortage', but I just went through a job hunt myself, and while I got contacted by 3-4 times more recruiters than I ever have been in the past, it felt like I was pulling teeth just to get the average wage offered to me from before the pandemic, let alone higher than that, and also interviewed for at least a half dozen companies that were still super picky, had really long interview cycles with multiple coding assessments, and were clearly looking for any minor reason to disqualify me and my 10+ years of experience. I was also still getting about a third of the recruiters trying to tell me that 100-120k (no equity, no bonus) was the max the company they represent could do for senior engineer or sometimes principal engineer roles, and tried to convince me that it's the best I would find in Chicago (it wasn't). If companies think they can still play games like this, there can't be a tech shortage. Fast food workers seem to be getting courted more than software engineers right now (not in absolute wages, obviously, but in percent differences in wages, perks, and flexibility).