4 ms·

It's grim everywhere, for everything, all at once. I haven't been able to find work as a graphic designer, motion designer, web designer, web developer, softwar

by jdiff 10mo ago

It's grim everywhere, for everything, all at once. I haven't been able to find work as a graphic designer, motion designer, web designer, web developer, software developer, and a large variety of retail jobs. Been on the job hunt since May, all I've been able to find is a part time position at The Home Depot.

venturecruelty 10mo ago
I wonder if it has anything to do with all of the 10-200% taxes we've levied on random things.
- csomar 10mo ago
  This started before the tariffs, so no direct link. Interest rates are more to blame.
- bequanna 10mo ago
  Offshoring (India + LATAM) with a side of h1b. Offshoring is by far the biggest culprit. Plenty of Jr/Mid roles hiring…but not US based.
  - jdlshore 10mo ago
    Offshoring has been a thing for decades. Seriously, Yourdon wrote a doom-and-gloom book about it in the 90s. It was called “Decline and Fall of the American Programmer,” published 1992. Then in 1996, he wrote “Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer.” The software industry is extremely fad-driven. During the pandemic, the fad was to hire programmers. That created a lot of busywork and coordination jobs that didn’t contribute to the bottom line. Then Musk bought Twitter, laid off a bunch of folks, and things kept running. So the trend became “cut the fat.” In fairness, there actually was fat to cut. Now boards are in cost-cutting mode and fantasizing about AI, so the pendulum has swung back towards offshoring. But that cost-cutting focus is going to lead to stagnation and self-cannibalization. Somebody’s going to buck the trend, have a splashy success, and the herd will trample back in the other direction.
    - WalterBright 10mo ago
      As always, free markets are a chaotic system of creative destruction.
    - yadaeno 10mo ago
      It’s been a thing, but Covid and remote work took away any possible argument to no offshore everything ASAP.
    - lesuorac 10mo ago
      > Then Musk bought Twitter, laid off a bunch of folks, and things kept running. I'm not sure you can give credit to Musk here. Buying a company and cutting all R&D to "juice" profits isn't his invention. Twitter is really around still in spite of his efforts as opposed to because of them; other CEOs might be doing layoffs but they're also not going out doing sieg heils. As well as he really fired them for fealty reasons and not economic ones. It should be very telling that Grok came out of X.ai and not X. Ultimately, Musk did have to reverse some of the layoffs although with a bit of slight of hand so that Twitter could release any sort of new products.
      - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
        It's not "his" thing, but he and a few early layoffs certainly made it trendy to do so. It's a small club, so seeing any "members" take any action is a sign they should follow suit.
    - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      >But that cost-cutting focus is going to lead to stagnation and self-cannibalization. Somebody’s going to buck the trend, have a splashy success, and the herd will trample back in the other direction. Yes. But sadly, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. And I feel there's going to be a huge storm to survive first. I imagine many may not even make it to the next shift.
  - mc32 10mo ago
    Offshoring affects the pipeline. That means once people leave the workforce or get promoted there are no locals who’ve the acumen to take over as those roles are overseas. Now you have to hire them H1Bs because you don’t have locals with the requisite experience. Of course managers wonder why there aren’t Americans with experience to fill those roles …
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- nicbou 10mo ago
  I don't know if it's as bad, but it's bad in Canada and Germany too. The whole world is doing pretty bad, it seems.
- potato3732842 10mo ago
  By "200% tax" surely you're talking about the fact that my boss just paid (as he was compelled by law to) a licensed plumber a 3-digit sum to tee the coffee machine into the water line for the fridge ice maker...
SoftTalker 10mo ago
Construction, trades, and basically physical-world stuff that AI cannot do are still hiring.
- AstroNutt 10mo ago
  Believe it or not, I've been in construction/remodeling for 35 years. We currently have 3 home remodels going on at the moment with more down the road. I've never experienced a slow down. Even during COVID. I'm not your typical HN member I don't think. I've been a computer nerd since I was 14 years old. I come here to stimulate my inner nerd.
  - cyanmagenta 10mo ago
    > I've never experienced a slow down You didn’t experience a slowdown at the height of the recession circa 2008?
    - AstroNutt 10mo ago
      Nope. Things still break and need repaired no matter how the housing market is.
    - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      being in construction for 35 years must mean they're already in the place that does the layoffs (instead of being laid off) by the time things get bad. You can easily say things don't slow down when you're divorced from the increasingly strained workers with less hours and benefits doing the construction.
    - jerlam 10mo ago
      Homeowners are often rich and older and isolated from recessions.
  - mgh95 10mo ago
    How did you get into construction/remodeling, and how would someone best reach out to this community? I have been thinking about some construction related ideas (mostly around prefab automation and sales) and haven't the slightest idea how to reach these types of people. I am always curious about people who are strongly oriented towards one thing (computing) but somehow wind up in another area, such as construction.
aorloff 10mo ago
I gotta tell you man, if you can find someone in charge at the backend of the Home Depot and let them hire you as a systems uptime troubleshooter you would easily make any salary you could name for them tenfold. I at at a Home Depot like 10 times a week and let me tell you, they have a major systems problem that is making their operations look like a joke
- jdiff 10mo ago
  Funny you mention, I'm actually working on that, too. There's an internal career portal with a large variety of backend jobs. No interviews, follow-ups, or anything yet.
- krackers 10mo ago
  >you would easily make any salary you could name for them tenfold. >I at at a Home Depot like 10 times a week And yet you still go to Home Depot, so from their perspective it's not an existential issue. Probably the biggest thing companies have learned recently is that they don't need 99.99% uptime, people will accept degraded performance because "that's just how technology works".
  - aorloff 10mo ago
    I am at 10 different supply stores too, Lowes, Ashby, Truitt and I get a shit ton of stuff delivered. Everyone competes on price, so when I see everyone at Home Depot with their thumbs up their asses because the computers are down, I know that Ashby is eating their lunch on the margin. I'm sure Home Depot has enormous economies of scale that make up for it, but this is a current issue.
  - ux266478 10mo ago
    I don't think that's an appropriate conclusion to draw from a single point of data.
    - array_key_first 10mo ago
      I think it's still a mostly correct conclusion. Pretty much everywhere you look across services, they've been cooked to their bones. Have you noticed that supermarkets seem to have, like, 1/5th the employees they did before? Since when is 1 open lane on a Saturday night and a 30 minute wait acceptable? Well, since we've accepted it. Everything kind of sucks and barely works, but it doesn't matter, because we ultimately put up with it.

by jdiff 10mo ago

venturecruelty 10mo ago

I wonder if it has anything to do with all of the 10-200% taxes we've levied on random things.

csomar 10mo ago
This started before the tariffs, so no direct link. Interest rates are more to blame.
bequanna 10mo ago
Offshoring (India + LATAM) with a side of h1b. Offshoring is by far the biggest culprit. Plenty of Jr/Mid roles hiring…but not US based.
- jdlshore 10mo ago
  Offshoring has been a thing for decades. Seriously, Yourdon wrote a doom-and-gloom book about it in the 90s. It was called “Decline and Fall of the American Programmer,” published 1992. Then in 1996, he wrote “Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer.” The software industry is extremely fad-driven. During the pandemic, the fad was to hire programmers. That created a lot of busywork and coordination jobs that didn’t contribute to the bottom line. Then Musk bought Twitter, laid off a bunch of folks, and things kept running. So the trend became “cut the fat.” In fairness, there actually was fat to cut. Now boards are in cost-cutting mode and fantasizing about AI, so the pendulum has swung back towards offshoring. But that cost-cutting focus is going to lead to stagnation and self-cannibalization. Somebody’s going to buck the trend, have a splashy success, and the herd will trample back in the other direction.
  - WalterBright 10mo ago
    As always, free markets are a chaotic system of creative destruction.
  - yadaeno 10mo ago
    It’s been a thing, but Covid and remote work took away any possible argument to no offshore everything ASAP.
  - lesuorac 10mo ago
    > Then Musk bought Twitter, laid off a bunch of folks, and things kept running. I'm not sure you can give credit to Musk here. Buying a company and cutting all R&D to "juice" profits isn't his invention. Twitter is really around still in spite of his efforts as opposed to because of them; other CEOs might be doing layoffs but they're also not going out doing sieg heils. As well as he really fired them for fealty reasons and not economic ones. It should be very telling that Grok came out of X.ai and not X. Ultimately, Musk did have to reverse some of the layoffs although with a bit of slight of hand so that Twitter could release any sort of new products.
    - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
      It's not "his" thing, but he and a few early layoffs certainly made it trendy to do so. It's a small club, so seeing any "members" take any action is a sign they should follow suit.
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    >But that cost-cutting focus is going to lead to stagnation and self-cannibalization. Somebody’s going to buck the trend, have a splashy success, and the herd will trample back in the other direction. Yes. But sadly, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. And I feel there's going to be a huge storm to survive first. I imagine many may not even make it to the next shift.
- mc32 10mo ago
  Offshoring affects the pipeline. That means once people leave the workforce or get promoted there are no locals who’ve the acumen to take over as those roles are overseas. Now you have to hire them H1Bs because you don’t have locals with the requisite experience. Of course managers wonder why there aren’t Americans with experience to fill those roles …
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
nicbou 10mo ago
I don't know if it's as bad, but it's bad in Canada and Germany too. The whole world is doing pretty bad, it seems.
potato3732842 10mo ago
By "200% tax" surely you're talking about the fact that my boss just paid (as he was compelled by law to) a licensed plumber a 3-digit sum to tee the coffee machine into the water line for the fridge ice maker...

SoftTalker 10mo ago

Construction, trades, and basically physical-world stuff that AI cannot do are still hiring.

AstroNutt 10mo ago
Believe it or not, I've been in construction/remodeling for 35 years. We currently have 3 home remodels going on at the moment with more down the road. I've never experienced a slow down. Even during COVID. I'm not your typical HN member I don't think. I've been a computer nerd since I was 14 years old. I come here to stimulate my inner nerd.
- cyanmagenta 10mo ago
  > I've never experienced a slow down You didn’t experience a slowdown at the height of the recession circa 2008?
  - AstroNutt 10mo ago
    Nope. Things still break and need repaired no matter how the housing market is.
  - johnnyanmac 10mo ago
    being in construction for 35 years must mean they're already in the place that does the layoffs (instead of being laid off) by the time things get bad. You can easily say things don't slow down when you're divorced from the increasingly strained workers with less hours and benefits doing the construction.
  - jerlam 10mo ago
    Homeowners are often rich and older and isolated from recessions.
- mgh95 10mo ago
  How did you get into construction/remodeling, and how would someone best reach out to this community? I have been thinking about some construction related ideas (mostly around prefab automation and sales) and haven't the slightest idea how to reach these types of people. I am always curious about people who are strongly oriented towards one thing (computing) but somehow wind up in another area, such as construction.

aorloff 10mo ago

I gotta tell you man, if you can find someone in charge at the backend of the Home Depot and let them hire you as a systems uptime troubleshooter you would easily make any salary you could name for them tenfold. I at at a Home Depot like 10 times a week and let me tell you, they have a major systems problem that is making their operations look like a joke

jdiff 10mo ago
Funny you mention, I'm actually working on that, too. There's an internal career portal with a large variety of backend jobs. No interviews, follow-ups, or anything yet.
krackers 10mo ago
>you would easily make any salary you could name for them tenfold. >I at at a Home Depot like 10 times a week And yet you still go to Home Depot, so from their perspective it's not an existential issue. Probably the biggest thing companies have learned recently is that they don't need 99.99% uptime, people will accept degraded performance because "that's just how technology works".
- aorloff 10mo ago
  I am at 10 different supply stores too, Lowes, Ashby, Truitt and I get a shit ton of stuff delivered. Everyone competes on price, so when I see everyone at Home Depot with their thumbs up their asses because the computers are down, I know that Ashby is eating their lunch on the margin. I'm sure Home Depot has enormous economies of scale that make up for it, but this is a current issue.
- ux266478 10mo ago
  I don't think that's an appropriate conclusion to draw from a single point of data.
  - array_key_first 10mo ago
    I think it's still a mostly correct conclusion. Pretty much everywhere you look across services, they've been cooked to their bones. Have you noticed that supermarkets seem to have, like, 1/5th the employees they did before? Since when is 1 open lane on a Saturday night and a 30 minute wait acceptable? Well, since we've accepted it. Everything kind of sucks and barely works, but it doesn't matter, because we ultimately put up with it.