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When we talk about tech hiring we often focus on demand and don't think about supply. The number of IT/software graduates has been steadily increasing as well.

When we talk about tech hiring we often focus on demand and don't think about supply. The number of IT/software graduates has been steadily increasing as well. And they have to work somewhere. If there are no jobs these new grads can "flip burgers" or something, but more likely they'll find someone willing to hire them to crank out code. Of course the cause and effect are intertwined. More code means more apps get made, which means more investors think the market will keep going up, which makes them invest. That's the "bubble". I've been coding for 10 years. The coding profession has been a thing for maybe 40 years. The industry still hasn't worked out how to plan for these labor shortage and surplus cycles.

throwaway4837 4y ago
> And they have to work somewhere. If there are no jobs these new grads can "flip burgers" or something, but more likely they'll find someone willing to hire them to crank out code. If there are no jobs, then how? The market doesn't have to use up the entire supply of skilled workers. It's not going to create jobs just to give people jobs.
- dmn322 4y ago
  There’s 2 ways this could go: 1) create enough of a safety net or give people enough cash that they can start businesses taking advantage of the increased productivity of ai 2) austerity: let them get fired from jobs in failing industries with no safety net, they will not have the opportunity to create businesses, and they will work in crappy tedious jobs a robot or ai could easily do, but because companies can afford cheap humans and they don’t have capital for robots, they will hire people desperate to do anything to keep their family from homelessness. Which one do you think we’re going to do?
  - ihatepython 4y ago
    3) Reinstitute the military draft for the upcoming war so that the unemployed now have a purpose in life
    - dmn322 4y ago
      An inevitable side effect of #2
    - solarmist 4y ago
      The draft will 100% never be reimplemented in the US. The all volunteer military has been far too successful.
      - the_only_law 4y ago
        The army and particularly the navy are looking pretty desperate for recruits right now.
    - Yoric 4y ago
      Apparently, according to the government, that's officially planned in my country.
jrochkind1 4y ago
that... is not how supply and demand work.
ComradeMatis 4y ago
What I've noticed, at least in New Zealand, is a lot of work that is being done is replacing legacy systems with many organisations having kicked the can down the road only to get the point that they've run out of road. The IT cycle appears to come in waves where there are moments of transition only for things to die down as organisations move to maintenance mode until the next technology arrives and thee is a start of a new transition. A good example is how browsers have become more sophisticated and it is now possible to do things that used to require bespoke programs to do tasks that can now be pushed into the cloud. A good example of that would be at my work place where moved to using Amazon Connect via Chrome, from having a locally run Exchange server to it being thrown into Google Workspace along with macros used in Microsoft Office being migrated into Google Docs. It'll be interesting to see whether there is a bounce back as the big players embrace AI or whether it'll be about improving what already exists rather than entirely new software platforms.
jstx1 4y ago
> If there are no jobs these new grads can "flip burgers" or something, but more likely they'll find someone willing to hire them to crank out code. If there are no jobs, they can't find someone willing to hire them to code, that's what "no jobs" means.
rhino369 4y ago
>And they have to work somewhere. No they don’t. Plenty of professions generate way too many graduates. Law is a good example—probably 2-3x as many graduates than are really needed. It leads to a bimodal distribution of salaries. The big firms pay 200k to a grads with decent grades from good schools. But a lot of people can’t even find a 60k job in law.

throwaway4837 4y ago

> And they have to work somewhere. If there are no jobs these new grads can "flip burgers" or something, but more likely they'll find someone willing to hire them to crank out code. If there are no jobs, then how? The market doesn't have to use up the entire supply of skilled workers. It's not going to create jobs just to give people jobs.

dmn322 4y ago
There’s 2 ways this could go: 1) create enough of a safety net or give people enough cash that they can start businesses taking advantage of the increased productivity of ai 2) austerity: let them get fired from jobs in failing industries with no safety net, they will not have the opportunity to create businesses, and they will work in crappy tedious jobs a robot or ai could easily do, but because companies can afford cheap humans and they don’t have capital for robots, they will hire people desperate to do anything to keep their family from homelessness. Which one do you think we’re going to do?
- ihatepython 4y ago
  3) Reinstitute the military draft for the upcoming war so that the unemployed now have a purpose in life
  - dmn322 4y ago
    An inevitable side effect of #2
  - solarmist 4y ago
    The draft will 100% never be reimplemented in the US. The all volunteer military has been far too successful.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      The army and particularly the navy are looking pretty desperate for recruits right now.
  - Yoric 4y ago
    Apparently, according to the government, that's officially planned in my country.

jrochkind1 4y ago

that... is not how supply and demand work.

ComradeMatis 4y ago

What I've noticed, at least in New Zealand, is a lot of work that is being done is replacing legacy systems with many organisations having kicked the can down the road only to get the point that they've run out of road. The IT cycle appears to come in waves where there are moments of transition only for things to die down as organisations move to maintenance mode until the next technology arrives and thee is a start of a new transition. A good example is how browsers have become more sophisticated and it is now possible to do things that used to require bespoke programs to do tasks that can now be pushed into the cloud. A good example of that would be at my work place where moved to using Amazon Connect via Chrome, from having a locally run Exchange server to it being thrown into Google Workspace along with macros used in Microsoft Office being migrated into Google Docs. It'll be interesting to see whether there is a bounce back as the big players embrace AI or whether it'll be about improving what already exists rather than entirely new software platforms.

jstx1 4y ago

> If there are no jobs these new grads can "flip burgers" or something, but more likely they'll find someone willing to hire them to crank out code. If there are no jobs, they can't find someone willing to hire them to code, that's what "no jobs" means.

rhino369 4y ago

>And they have to work somewhere. No they don’t. Plenty of professions generate way too many graduates. Law is a good example—probably 2-3x as many graduates than are really needed. It leads to a bimodal distribution of salaries. The big firms pay 200k to a grads with decent grades from good schools. But a lot of people can’t even find a 60k job in law.