6 ms·

Tech jobs market normalizing as July unemployment dips

58 points by sizzle 3y ago

catsarebetter 3y ago
We've had tons of layoffs in the past year, I don't think we'll see the effects of them until next year.
tuckerpo 3y ago
I'd hardly call it normalizing. The acceleration of layoffs has decreased, nearing a zero-crossing, but we've still got 100,000s of unemployed engineers floating around in the market.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- sarchertech 3y ago
  BLS says tech sector unemployment is down to 1.8%. Given the size of the tech sector there can’t be hundreds of thousands of unemployed software engineers.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  which market? where? layoffs.fyi suggests 964 tech companies w/ layoffs ∙ 231349 employees laid off in 2023, and if you look at the actual site, a whole freakin lot of them are in different countries. additionally they don't make a distinction between DEI and STEM workers, just layoffs. there may be 100k actual programmers -- IT staff, Product Managers, DEI, etc. -- but 50% of them are in India, London, Israel, or Croatia, and most of them were never going to interview for jobs outside of their country.
Incerto 3y ago
Let's not count our chickens before they've hatched.
- dymk 3y ago
  This article is about hatched chicks
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - black_13 3y ago
    [dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mdorazio 3y ago
I’m having trouble reconciling this with several threads over the last few days lamenting how hard it is to get interviews right now. Different position levels? Different sectors within tech? Not sure what’s going on.
- frfl 3y ago
  I asked the HN crowd's perspective just over a week ago [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37111560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37111560 I guess we can ask again. HN readers, what's it like for you right now trying to find a job?
  - davesque 3y ago
    Just wanted to point out that the way you presented the question, and the forum you presented it in, made it more likely that you would hear from people that agreed with you. Generally, if people don't have a problem with something, they just don't bother chiming in. If they're already concerned, they're more likely to respond. So you may not be getting a representative sample of the actual opinions that people hold on the issue.
    - frfl 3y ago
      Do you have a suggestion for a more neutral way to ask this question to avoid bias?
      - davesque 3y ago
        You could have simply asked something like, "What are peoples opinions on the job market?" > My conclusion, so far, is unless you've got strong connections it's hard right now to find a job. By including this take, you may have primed people to respond with a similar opinion. But actually I think it might be almost impossible to eliminate the bias. You're very likely to hear back from people who are job searching. And job searching is an inherently stressful activity that breeds a negative state of mind. So you're very likely to hear back from people who think the situation is bad.
oxfordmale 3y ago
It will take until 2024 for the job market to recover. The ARM IPO will be the first bell weather this year to gauge confidence in the tech sector.
- austinwade 3y ago
  There are many other factors that could cause the ARM IPO to do poorly other than the tech sector's health. See: https://twitter.com/chamath/status/1693995783715278957 https://twitter.com/chamath/status/1693995783715278957 Take with a grain of salt of course given Chamath's public performance history.
- harryVic 3y ago
  I highly doubt it. I hope I'm wrong but there were far too many companies that raised 100s of millions with no kind of business model during the 2021 bubble. Those companies would have to go out of business before the market can go back to exuberance again. As an example this company https://www.gather.town/ https://www.gather.town/ has raised $76 million.
  - theonething 3y ago
    lol, do they have virtual bathrooms?
  - po8tin 3y ago
    The potential ripple effect is too big to ignore for much longer. 100,000 engineers is tip of ice berg when it comes to number of people feeling the squeeze. Social media commentary has been trending towards outright hostility towards the rich and politicians, not just in the usual discourse hellholes like Reddit and Xitter, but even here (I have access to dashboards that model and weight discourse; technically proprietary though so I can’t divulge too much.) Too many people with too much time on their hands, with little expectation of help from the system will foster sentiment it is time replace the system. I don’t disagree but think it should be handled intentionally, not waved off until last minute like we did with covid and climate change. In the US there are only 1 million LEO but an order of magnitude more of people who stand to lose it all if austerity for the proles goes on too long.
zuhayeer 3y ago
We published the Levels.fyi 2023 mid-year compensation report earlier: https://www.levels.fyi/blog/2023-mid-year-report.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/2023-mid-year-report.html While volume of hiring may have been lower overall so far this year, median compensation has generally remained steady or increased in the first half of 2023 relative to the last half of 2022 for most roles. In particular, the median for software engineer compensation stayed the same, while roles such as software engineering management saw a 5% increase in overall pay. Augmented reality was quite in-demand so far in 2023. AI engineers have also seen elevated compensation compared to their engineer counterparts, which we analyze on our post here: https://www.levels.fyi/blog/ai-engineer-compensation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/ai-engineer-compensation.html
- calvinmorrison 3y ago
  being just a regular IT person with 15+years experience and getting paid fairly well for what the local market is, whats the chance of a normal person working at a place that pays $700,000 as a SWE? How do you even approach that? Does someone mid career have a chance to pivot?
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    Almost nowhere pays $700k for a SWE. These numbers come from stock grants or similar financial instruments; that money gets realized eventually, but it's not guaranteed in the same way that a fortnightly bank deposit is.
    - whimsicalism 3y ago
      If we are discussing the levels.fyi pay report, then they are only including the numbers you get in a single year, you are incorrect. $700k is obviously top top band, but this is referring to annual pay.
      - idontpost 3y ago
        [dead]
darth_avocado 3y ago
I would hardly call this normalizing. > Finding the IT workers they need to meet hiring goals or complete projects is a struggle for more than two-thirds of executives This should tell you everything you need to know about the market. Jobs are being added, but the quality of jobs has deteriorated. If 1000 people were laid off from Google and 1000 jobs opened up for contract roles in consultancies that pay below market wages, I would not call that normalizing. Anecdotally, it is still very hard to find a reasonable paying job. I’m not talking Google/Facebook salaries, I’m talking engineering at Albertsons salaries.
- junon 3y ago
  Seconded. Plus what is up with recruiting culture lately? The ghosting is worse than online dating at this point. There was a time I was annoyed at the canned rejection emails but I'll be damned if I even get a one word "no" these days.
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    > The ghosting is worse than online dating at this point. Honestly, when I do several rounds and travel 2 hours to your stupid office, I’d hope I’d at least get a fucking yes/no.
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      Ask for a timeframe for the hiring decision and if they don’t respond by then, assume it means no. No use working for someone who will string you along anyway because they probably do that will all of their work.
    - gedy 3y ago
      Yeah I hate it. I do think folks should name names for companies like this. Glassdoor (ironically) did this to me, and they were the ones to reach out first.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      It's laziness.
myth_drannon 3y ago
Looking at the number of open jobs on https://www.trueup.io/job-trend https://www.trueup.io/job-trend It was flat since March '23 and had a slight uptick in July

58 points by sizzle 3y ago

We've had tons of layoffs in the past year, I don't think we'll see the effects of them until next year.

I'd hardly call it normalizing. The acceleration of layoffs has decreased, nearing a zero-crossing, but we've still got 100,000s of unemployed engineers floating around in the market.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sarchertech 3y ago
BLS says tech sector unemployment is down to 1.8%. Given the size of the tech sector there can’t be hundreds of thousands of unemployed software engineers.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
which market? where? layoffs.fyi suggests 964 tech companies w/ layoffs ∙ 231349 employees laid off in 2023, and if you look at the actual site, a whole freakin lot of them are in different countries. additionally they don't make a distinction between DEI and STEM workers, just layoffs. there may be 100k actual programmers -- IT staff, Product Managers, DEI, etc. -- but 50% of them are in India, London, Israel, or Croatia, and most of them were never going to interview for jobs outside of their country.

Incerto 3y ago

Let's not count our chickens before they've hatched.

dymk 3y ago
This article is about hatched chicks
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- black_13 3y ago
  [dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mdorazio 3y ago

I’m having trouble reconciling this with several threads over the last few days lamenting how hard it is to get interviews right now. Different position levels? Different sectors within tech? Not sure what’s going on.

frfl 3y ago
I asked the HN crowd's perspective just over a week ago [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37111560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37111560 I guess we can ask again. HN readers, what's it like for you right now trying to find a job?
- davesque 3y ago
  Just wanted to point out that the way you presented the question, and the forum you presented it in, made it more likely that you would hear from people that agreed with you. Generally, if people don't have a problem with something, they just don't bother chiming in. If they're already concerned, they're more likely to respond. So you may not be getting a representative sample of the actual opinions that people hold on the issue.
  - frfl 3y ago
    Do you have a suggestion for a more neutral way to ask this question to avoid bias?
    - davesque 3y ago
      You could have simply asked something like, "What are peoples opinions on the job market?" > My conclusion, so far, is unless you've got strong connections it's hard right now to find a job. By including this take, you may have primed people to respond with a similar opinion. But actually I think it might be almost impossible to eliminate the bias. You're very likely to hear back from people who are job searching. And job searching is an inherently stressful activity that breeds a negative state of mind. So you're very likely to hear back from people who think the situation is bad.

oxfordmale 3y ago

It will take until 2024 for the job market to recover. The ARM IPO will be the first bell weather this year to gauge confidence in the tech sector.

austinwade 3y ago
There are many other factors that could cause the ARM IPO to do poorly other than the tech sector's health. See: https://twitter.com/chamath/status/1693995783715278957 https://twitter.com/chamath/status/1693995783715278957 Take with a grain of salt of course given Chamath's public performance history.
harryVic 3y ago
I highly doubt it. I hope I'm wrong but there were far too many companies that raised 100s of millions with no kind of business model during the 2021 bubble. Those companies would have to go out of business before the market can go back to exuberance again. As an example this company https://www.gather.town/ https://www.gather.town/ has raised $76 million.
- theonething 3y ago
  lol, do they have virtual bathrooms?
- po8tin 3y ago
  The potential ripple effect is too big to ignore for much longer. 100,000 engineers is tip of ice berg when it comes to number of people feeling the squeeze. Social media commentary has been trending towards outright hostility towards the rich and politicians, not just in the usual discourse hellholes like Reddit and Xitter, but even here (I have access to dashboards that model and weight discourse; technically proprietary though so I can’t divulge too much.) Too many people with too much time on their hands, with little expectation of help from the system will foster sentiment it is time replace the system. I don’t disagree but think it should be handled intentionally, not waved off until last minute like we did with covid and climate change. In the US there are only 1 million LEO but an order of magnitude more of people who stand to lose it all if austerity for the proles goes on too long.

zuhayeer 3y ago

We published the Levels.fyi 2023 mid-year compensation report earlier: https://www.levels.fyi/blog/2023-mid-year-report.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/2023-mid-year-report.html While volume of hiring may have been lower overall so far this year, median compensation has generally remained steady or increased in the first half of 2023 relative to the last half of 2022 for most roles. In particular, the median for software engineer compensation stayed the same, while roles such as software engineering management saw a 5% increase in overall pay. Augmented reality was quite in-demand so far in 2023. AI engineers have also seen elevated compensation compared to their engineer counterparts, which we analyze on our post here: https://www.levels.fyi/blog/ai-engineer-compensation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/ai-engineer-compensation.html

calvinmorrison 3y ago
being just a regular IT person with 15+years experience and getting paid fairly well for what the local market is, whats the chance of a normal person working at a place that pays $700,000 as a SWE? How do you even approach that? Does someone mid career have a chance to pivot?
- woodruffw 3y ago
  Almost nowhere pays $700k for a SWE. These numbers come from stock grants or similar financial instruments; that money gets realized eventually, but it's not guaranteed in the same way that a fortnightly bank deposit is.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    If we are discussing the levels.fyi pay report, then they are only including the numbers you get in a single year, you are incorrect. $700k is obviously top top band, but this is referring to annual pay.
    - idontpost 3y ago
      [dead]

darth_avocado 3y ago

I would hardly call this normalizing. > Finding the IT workers they need to meet hiring goals or complete projects is a struggle for more than two-thirds of executives This should tell you everything you need to know about the market. Jobs are being added, but the quality of jobs has deteriorated. If 1000 people were laid off from Google and 1000 jobs opened up for contract roles in consultancies that pay below market wages, I would not call that normalizing. Anecdotally, it is still very hard to find a reasonable paying job. I’m not talking Google/Facebook salaries, I’m talking engineering at Albertsons salaries.

junon 3y ago
Seconded. Plus what is up with recruiting culture lately? The ghosting is worse than online dating at this point. There was a time I was annoyed at the canned rejection emails but I'll be damned if I even get a one word "no" these days.
- the_only_law 3y ago
  > The ghosting is worse than online dating at this point. Honestly, when I do several rounds and travel 2 hours to your stupid office, I’d hope I’d at least get a fucking yes/no.
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    Ask for a timeframe for the hiring decision and if they don’t respond by then, assume it means no. No use working for someone who will string you along anyway because they probably do that will all of their work.
  - gedy 3y ago
    Yeah I hate it. I do think folks should name names for companies like this. Glassdoor (ironically) did this to me, and they were the ones to reach out first.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    It's laziness.

myth_drannon 3y ago

Looking at the number of open jobs on https://www.trueup.io/job-trend https://www.trueup.io/job-trend It was flat since March '23 and had a slight uptick in July