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Tech layoffs highest since dot-com crash
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sheepscreek 3y agoI don’t understand the comparison. Fewer people were employed in Tech 25 yrs ago.
- nextworddev 3y agoBut the second derivative has stabilized?
- mytailorisrich 3y agoPeople should look on the bright side. The dot-com crash was brutal. Brighter days followed.
- bmitc 3y agoDoes that pay mortgages and daycare?
- abduhl 3y agoNo, but the large salaries and stock compensation that tech workers have been paid over the past decade certainly should, along with the generous severance packages that are pervasive in the tech industry. You have been living within your means and saving, haven’t you?
- nateglims 3y agoWhen a significant portion of your compensation is an asset, it kind of disincentivizes this.
- abduhl 3y agoThe stock market is at or near all time highs.
- thfuran 3y agoIt usually is.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoA good time to sell and make actual money.
- silverquiet 3y agoNever saw anything like the numbers that people post here and also never got any stock myself.
- icedchai 3y agoMost of my startup options turned out to be worthless. The little that wasn't? It wasn't even worth the pay cut I took for it. You really have to be in the right place at the right time. I do, however, always live below my means, save, and invest. I have never saved less than 30% of my salary. You have to do this long term, meaning 15 to 20 years+. Many people don't have the temperament to do this.
- ThrowawayR2 3y ago"Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Unlike the dot com bust, there's not much, if any, low hanging fruit left that could drive growth in employment of developers.
- suzzer99 3y agoThat's what a lot of people thought before mobile and social media. I'm not saying it will happen. But something new could come along.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoPast performance has been fantastic and there is no indication that it will change. BUT, performance goes through boom and bust cycles. It is not unique to the tech industry. Hence the ant saves during times of plenty. New things will pop up and current things will pick up as well. It is cyclic. The dotcom crash, 9/11, 2008, covid, and that's just since 2000. So when I read that now it is really over I can't help but chuckle a little bit.
- nytesky 3y agoExcept for a brief spike as the Fed tried to coral the housing bubble, we’ve had CRAZY low rates for 20 years. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS A big part of that was inflation was bottled up by basically outsourcing manufacturing to low labor cost China, but that effect is declining for a variety of reasons. Inflation has been stubborn and even with higher rates the economy is roaring, so higher rates may persist and be a drag on tech employment.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoI think that the claim that interest rates are dragging tech employment down is overblown. Rates were the same or higher during the dotcom boom. I don't think they impact VC that much and companies are still getting massive funding rounds.
- jasoneckert 3y agoI'd like to see more comparative data within articles like this in general. For example, what number of people worked in tech during the dot-com bubble era versus today, and in which areas were layoffs more frequent during each time? And what were the percentage of layoffs in each area then compared to now?
- magicalhippo 3y agoWe're noticing a slowdown here in Norway as well. We're a small B2B company and have been struggling hard to hire new developers for years, running a deficit of 2-3 devs for last 5+ years. Within last few months we've suddenly gotten multiple candidates and now find we have to pick and choose. Really didn't expect it to affect us that much and so suddenly here in Norway.
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoI'm considering doing a career switch from one tech area to another but I hate how hard it is to see job trends. Supposedly there are job openings in "AI" whatever that is. Does anyone know somewhere to find real job trends over time broken down by skills?
- jhanoncomm 3y agoThe anecdote doesn’t sound too bad: > During five weeks of job hunting, Croisant said she applied to 48 openings and landed two interviews. She finally opted to accept a lower-level data analyst role and a roughly $3,000 reduction in her base pay to take a contract role starting next month at a financial technology company. > “This was an absolutely terrifying experience for me, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever truly feel secure in a job again,” Croisant said. “But I’m still one of the lucky ones in the end. I have friends who’ve been looking for months and still haven’t found anything.”
- hakdbha 3y ago[dead]
- olah_1 3y agoShe thinks that was terrifying? I’ve been applying for 2 years and landed maybe 5 interviews, none of which offered me a job. Two friends recommended me for jobs and I couldn't even get phone calls screenings. Note: I am a white male.
- Larrikin 3y agoWhy did you post your race and gender instead of your experience and projects worked on?
- mozempthrowaway 3y agoI’ve been on hiring committees at Mozilla where being a white male hurts the candidate. The committee wants a racial minority, LQBTQIA+, etc. The best white males can do is claim to be neurodivergent. That one lets them get passed the filters. But I’ve been part of discussions where the committee explicitly said they were disappointed the best candidate didn’t help with diversity and thus we passed.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThat would be really illegal. But unfortunately, discrimination one way or the other often goes unpunished even if there are laws against it.
- hakdbha 3y ago[dead]
- mullingitover 3y agoTech historically has a chronic staffing shortage, which has been why it has paid so well. I would not be surprised if we later learn there's been a Signal chatroom with a cabal of Fortune 500[1] board members with a conversation that's going like this: > Hey folks, staffing is getting expensive. Competing for staff is hurting us all. What do you say we all coordinate and put our projects on ice for a while, do major layoffs for 18 months or so, and push wages back down to 2014 levels? (+237 thumbs up reactions) [1] https://theyrule.net/ https://theyrule.net/
- sleight42 3y agoIn 2010, major players in the Valley were found guilty of colluding to keep salaries lower. It took a few years but salaries in Tech spiked enormously. See https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-six-high-tech-companies-stop-entering-anticompetitive-employee https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-s...
- rvz 3y ago> Tech historically has a chronic staffing shortage, which has been why it has paid so well. Companies really don't want more staff at these salaries if they are seen as a cost center in the billions each year, Twitter, Meta, Snap, Coinbase, Robinhood, etc are great examples that showed this in the past. They really are screaming for a staff shortage of people who want to accept their very low-ball offers. A decade ago, the amount of VC capital contributed to such inflated salaries as the standard to lure people working at banks, wall st, hedge funds or older established tech companies. As soon as those places started to lose staff to startups, they decided to raise their salaries and comp packages to discourage them from leaving, and those companines can afford to do such raises or bonuses. Startups? Not so much, unless they are immensely profitable. > Hey folks, staffing is getting expensive. Competing for staff is hurting us all. What do you say we all coordinate and put our projects on ice for a while, do major layoffs for 18 months or so, and push wages back down to 2014 levels? ...and off shore the laid off staff and hire developers in cheaper countries as a skeleton crew to keep costs down and beat Wall St. expectations.
- gnicholas 3y ago
- mrandish 3y agoThere is an alternate viewpoint which says much of the current tech layoff wave is a market correction resulting from accelerated hiring during the Covid tech boom which turned out to be a bubble vs the 'new normal'. I've seen data indicating many tech companies who've done layoffs are still at slightly higher staffing than they were when Covid began (~Q1 2020). I haven't looked deeply into the data myself but it seems worth keeping in mind as context.
- rvz 3y agoThe reality is, it wasn't sustainable in the first place and had to crash to wipe out all the copycats and the ones who could not generate profits for years. A decade ago many startups could get away with it for years, now VCs are demanding to cut back staff and tighten up the purse. A reminder that the cheap money era is over.
- nojvek 3y agoAnd here we are saying AI won’t take jobs. It’s different than industrialization. The definition of AGI is - do what humans do, but better. This will only exacerbate over time.
- nojvek 3y agoWith all the layoffs, the big Tech still keep on filing for more H1Bs. How about Congress bans new H1Bs for tech companies for a few years until the market settles?
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