6 ms·

Higher-paid employees looking for work are having a tough time

73 points by rustoo 2y ago

danesparza 2y ago
"But for the rest of us, the era of cushy jobs with healthy salaries and light responsibilities might be ending." Wait. That was a thing? This article also mentions, "Last year saw the demise of middle managers." Is that all this article is talking about? Because a more appropriate way of addressing this is probably talking about what market shift is currently happening, and how economies experience cycles of expansion and contraction because of industry growth and changes.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  My guess is this has more to do with companies optimizing their financial situation through layoffs (reducing number of available positions) and with remote work acceptance enabling offshoring. I doubt it is about middle managers specially - despite being made fun of they are important and necessary in most companies.
  - dyauspitr 2y ago
    Middle managers basically do all the lifting at my company. If anything I feel like the directors and the executives have relatively light responsibilities.
- blagie 2y ago
  Yes, it was a thing. And I feel like there are several headwinds: 1) Globalization. Many countries have better talent for lower-cost than the US now. Our school system sucks. This is not a bad thing, since it improves lives for hundreds of millions of people, just not here. 2) Automation. GenAI isn't taking over roles, but it is allowing them to be fulfilled with fewer people. 3) Inelastic supply curve. If demand falls, wages plummet. If demand rises, wages skyrocket. This means that something like a 10% layoff can have a disproportionate effect on both job availability and salary. 4) As relevant to HN, K-12 schools are making coding increasingly mandatory, so that skillset is less and less exclusive. There's an open question about how much of this is a cycle. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1850, and has a nice discussion about how highly-skilled, respected artisan jobs were wiped out by industrialization, where a master blacksmith and unskilled labor had the same salary as factory labourers, which is worth a reread, and seeing which parts turned out wrong, and which parts turned out right. A lot of what we might be seeing might be macroeconomic trends, rather than a cyclical.
  - ch4s3 2y ago
    > but it is allowing them to be fulfilled with fewer people. Are you seeing this in the wild? I see a few people using it here an there to be a little more efficient, but I haven't seen anything better than a marginal improvement yet. I'd be curious to hear how people are using this stuff for meaningful work.
    - neom 2y ago
      I work at a law firm and CoCounsel[1] is pretty good. It's not impacting jobs yet, but I suspect next year will be the year planning with automation in mind will happen. [1]https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/artificial-intelligence.html https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/artificial-intelligence.ht...
    - apwell23 2y ago
      > I'd be curious to hear how people are using this stuff for meaningful work. I use it for coding all the time. All day everyday. I don't know about 'fewer people' claim though
      - ch4s3 2y ago
        I use it a little too, but it’s not a huge boost. Maybe I’d feel differently if I had to churn out typescript.
    - blagie 2y ago
      I spoke to a CTO of a firm doing relatively cookie-cutter work (custom software for things like waste management). They were able to lay off a significant portion of their workforce due to AI. I think it's eating in more at the bottom-end of coding right now. It definitely makes me more productive in high-end, by more than what I'd call marginal, but not by enough that it's risking jobs. However, the article, and my comment, were more general than coding. The impact is different industry-by-industry, from zero to very high.
      - delfinom 2y ago
- jiveturkey 2y ago
  > more appropriate way this is a BI article. reset your expectations
- apwell23 2y ago
  > Wait. That was a thing? yes it was def a thing. Lots of people i know had ( and still have) 2 or 3 jobs at the same time.
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
I thought we don't share Business Insider crapware here.
- mlhpdx 2y ago
  I hadn’t heard that, but I can see why. That article is pure clickbait.
oytis 2y ago
Looks pretty low on content, everything meaningful is in a linked article https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-wh...
flyingspaceship 2y ago
I think people have memories of goldfish nowadays and the second hiring picks back up everyone will forget all about this
- jf22 2y ago
  This is the 4th or 5th downturn I've been part of. The same articles were written each time. Once growth starts up again things will be the same.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    Me too but - remember the jobless recovery from the early 1990's? This time around feels a lot more like it did then. Corporate profits are soaring, Wall Street is happy - there's lots of money being made. Except employees have been left out of the party and are on the outside looking in. This feels very much like that. Then again, that era presided one of the largest periods of economic growth in US history! If history repeats itself then we're all going to be in for a great time in about five years! Of course, that may be of little help to you if in the meanwhile you've depleted your life savings and have been foreclosed on.
    - jf22 2y ago
      I guess. With media so gamified and managed, it's hard to know what's true or what big spenders want us to think is true about the economy.
      - taylodl 2y ago
        Media can't gamify the facts: corporate profits are soaring and the stock indices have been doing great. GDP is up, US-based manufacturing is up, and job growth is at the highest levels in the modern era. The fact that's not helping the guy out on Main Street much is exactly what we saw in the early 90's. The one thing I would say is different between now and the early 90's is we have a lot more retirees, and retirees as a group are much more exposed to inflation. Though its largely the Boomers who are that group of retirees and they've been through periods of much higher inflation and so if they thought Quantitative Easing was going to last forever then they were just being foolish. They're also the generation rapidly losing power and so they like to complain so they can still feel like they have some power. If anything, because of the Boomers I'd say the media is being overly pessimistic about our current situation. It's still better than where we were in the early 90's.
nextworddev 2y ago
It’s called high interest rate environment
- apwell23 2y ago
  > high interest rate environment HIRE - not really.
- abduhl 2y ago
  We can see from https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate that we have actually returned to a low interest rate environment from a zero interest rate environment and that we are not even close to a high one.
  - nextworddev 2y ago
    Most people on HN didn’t live through the Volker years
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
boring-alterego 2y ago
At my company I'm in it's 6th reorganization in 13 years. The term used here is golden handcuffs. Where you're paid very well but you're in a middle of nowhere facility so any position you apply for has to be just right or it's not worth it.

73 points by rustoo 2y ago

"But for the rest of us, the era of cushy jobs with healthy salaries and light responsibilities might be ending." Wait. That was a thing? This article also mentions, "Last year saw the demise of middle managers." Is that all this article is talking about? Because a more appropriate way of addressing this is probably talking about what market shift is currently happening, and how economies experience cycles of expansion and contraction because of industry growth and changes.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
My guess is this has more to do with companies optimizing their financial situation through layoffs (reducing number of available positions) and with remote work acceptance enabling offshoring. I doubt it is about middle managers specially - despite being made fun of they are important and necessary in most companies.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  Middle managers basically do all the lifting at my company. If anything I feel like the directors and the executives have relatively light responsibilities.
blagie 2y ago
Yes, it was a thing. And I feel like there are several headwinds: 1) Globalization. Many countries have better talent for lower-cost than the US now. Our school system sucks. This is not a bad thing, since it improves lives for hundreds of millions of people, just not here. 2) Automation. GenAI isn't taking over roles, but it is allowing them to be fulfilled with fewer people. 3) Inelastic supply curve. If demand falls, wages plummet. If demand rises, wages skyrocket. This means that something like a 10% layoff can have a disproportionate effect on both job availability and salary. 4) As relevant to HN, K-12 schools are making coding increasingly mandatory, so that skillset is less and less exclusive. There's an open question about how much of this is a cycle. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1850, and has a nice discussion about how highly-skilled, respected artisan jobs were wiped out by industrialization, where a master blacksmith and unskilled labor had the same salary as factory labourers, which is worth a reread, and seeing which parts turned out wrong, and which parts turned out right. A lot of what we might be seeing might be macroeconomic trends, rather than a cyclical.
- ch4s3 2y ago
  > but it is allowing them to be fulfilled with fewer people. Are you seeing this in the wild? I see a few people using it here an there to be a little more efficient, but I haven't seen anything better than a marginal improvement yet. I'd be curious to hear how people are using this stuff for meaningful work.
  - neom 2y ago
    I work at a law firm and CoCounsel[1] is pretty good. It's not impacting jobs yet, but I suspect next year will be the year planning with automation in mind will happen. [1]https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/artificial-intelligence.html https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/artificial-intelligence.ht...
  - apwell23 2y ago
    > I'd be curious to hear how people are using this stuff for meaningful work. I use it for coding all the time. All day everyday. I don't know about 'fewer people' claim though
    - ch4s3 2y ago
      I use it a little too, but it’s not a huge boost. Maybe I’d feel differently if I had to churn out typescript.
  - blagie 2y ago
    I spoke to a CTO of a firm doing relatively cookie-cutter work (custom software for things like waste management). They were able to lay off a significant portion of their workforce due to AI. I think it's eating in more at the bottom-end of coding right now. It definitely makes me more productive in high-end, by more than what I'd call marginal, but not by enough that it's risking jobs. However, the article, and my comment, were more general than coding. The impact is different industry-by-industry, from zero to very high.
    - delfinom 2y ago
jiveturkey 2y ago
> more appropriate way this is a BI article. reset your expectations
apwell23 2y ago
> Wait. That was a thing? yes it was def a thing. Lots of people i know had ( and still have) 2 or 3 jobs at the same time.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

I thought we don't share Business Insider crapware here.

mlhpdx 2y ago
I hadn’t heard that, but I can see why. That article is pure clickbait.

oytis 2y ago

Looks pretty low on content, everything meaningful is in a linked article https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-wh...

flyingspaceship 2y ago

I think people have memories of goldfish nowadays and the second hiring picks back up everyone will forget all about this

jf22 2y ago
This is the 4th or 5th downturn I've been part of. The same articles were written each time. Once growth starts up again things will be the same.
- taylodl 2y ago
  Me too but - remember the jobless recovery from the early 1990's? This time around feels a lot more like it did then. Corporate profits are soaring, Wall Street is happy - there's lots of money being made. Except employees have been left out of the party and are on the outside looking in. This feels very much like that. Then again, that era presided one of the largest periods of economic growth in US history! If history repeats itself then we're all going to be in for a great time in about five years! Of course, that may be of little help to you if in the meanwhile you've depleted your life savings and have been foreclosed on.
  - jf22 2y ago
    I guess. With media so gamified and managed, it's hard to know what's true or what big spenders want us to think is true about the economy.
    - taylodl 2y ago
      Media can't gamify the facts: corporate profits are soaring and the stock indices have been doing great. GDP is up, US-based manufacturing is up, and job growth is at the highest levels in the modern era. The fact that's not helping the guy out on Main Street much is exactly what we saw in the early 90's. The one thing I would say is different between now and the early 90's is we have a lot more retirees, and retirees as a group are much more exposed to inflation. Though its largely the Boomers who are that group of retirees and they've been through periods of much higher inflation and so if they thought Quantitative Easing was going to last forever then they were just being foolish. They're also the generation rapidly losing power and so they like to complain so they can still feel like they have some power. If anything, because of the Boomers I'd say the media is being overly pessimistic about our current situation. It's still better than where we were in the early 90's.

nextworddev 2y ago

It’s called high interest rate environment

apwell23 2y ago
> high interest rate environment HIRE - not really.
abduhl 2y ago
We can see from https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate that we have actually returned to a low interest rate environment from a zero interest rate environment and that we are not even close to a high one.
- nextworddev 2y ago
  Most people on HN didn’t live through the Volker years

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

boring-alterego 2y ago

At my company I'm in it's 6th reorganization in 13 years. The term used here is golden handcuffs. Where you're paid very well but you're in a middle of nowhere facility so any position you apply for has to be just right or it's not worth it.