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Economists are facing a recession as a hiring crunch hits

alephnerd 9mo ago
One other issue that isn't mentioned, but has been voiced to me by my friends in the space is the rise of Data Science as an undergraduate discipline. Econometrics has always had better hiring stats than other econ subdisciplines, and historically, most Econ adjacent jobs were largely data cleansing, analysis, and benchmarking. On the other hand, math, statistics, and coding is hard, and a large portion of Econ undergrads (primarily at non-target programs) lacked the wherewithal or ability to tackle Baby Rudin or a data structures class. In a lot of cases, their professors themselves lacked significant mathematical or econometrics sophistication. What ended up happening was a glut of Econ majors who lacked the skills that were in demand in the Econ space (anything econometrics adjacent). Now that Data Science as an undergrad disciple has arisen, a number of jobs that historically would have hired an Econ major even if they lacked some technical sophistication have switched to hiring Data Science majors. Additionally, Econ majors who had significant maths/stats/cs backgrounds usually ended up double majoring or minoring in those disciplines already. And finally, at the top Econ undergrad programs, departments had already been extremely adamant about requiring their students to build maths/stats/cs sophistication beyond being a Stata monkey. The fact that even undergrad Government majors at Harvard are expected to do statistical modelling at the statistics major level, and often take CS109 as well highlights how deeply computational the social science has become, and a large portion of undergrads just aren't cut out for that. To paraphrase my friend: If you as an Econ undergrad cannot tackle Baby Rudin by your senior year, you have no employable future aside maybe law school, which itself is an increasingly losing proposition. You most likely won't do real analysis at the Baby Rudin level on a daily basis (if ever), but it's a positive signal about your mathematical and computational ability. That said, CS/CE/EECS grads shouldn't be high and mighty either. I've seen programs in the US increasingly make core classes like circuits, computer architecture, data structures, OS, systems programming, and even algorithms beyond discrete structures optional. The ideal of democratizing education is great, but should not come at the expense of foundational knowledge.
- ActorNightly 9mo ago
  Its simpler then that - everyone is facing a hiring crunch because everyone is preparing to weather massive economic downturn as foreign investment pulls out of United States.
  - alephnerd 9mo ago
    Not exactly, and I say this as someone on the boards of multiple companies and have previously been a hiring manager. It's a employer's market now and new grads in a number of disciples are increasingly underprepared aside from a handful of target programs. Furthermore, most companies can limit hiring to at most 15 target programs nationally and maybe 3-4 local programs and get by. For example, a program like UIUC graduates around 1200 CS and CE majors a year from a program with a 4-6% acceptance rate. Just limiting hiring only to UIUC undergrads who pass hiring standards would be enough to fill an entire new grad class. Same with UMich (~1.5k CS/CE undergrads a year), Cal (~1k CS/EECS undergrads a year), and a handful of other target programs. And if we feel those candidates are overpriced, we can arbitrage talent globally if needed. I've mentioned this multiple times on HN as well. Furthermore, the Econ hiring crisis has been going on for a decade.
    - ActorNightly 9mo ago
      You are missing the bigger picture. The stock market (which determines overall hiring) is propped up by large cap Tech, which is currently riding on AI, which is currently riding on TSMC. US politically is going down the drain. Its a fuse that can only be extinguished by Trumps health issues. China knows this, and is already doing preparations to invade Taiwan should US significantly weaken. Every other metric that you are see is secondary to this. Big tech hired like crazy during pandemic to grow for cheap cost, and then fired a whole bunch of people later. Companies dgaf about standards, they can essentially brute force stuff with enough headcount and higher salaries. And now, everyone is watching and waiting to see what will happen.
      - alephnerd 9mo ago

One other issue that isn't mentioned, but has been voiced to me by my friends in the space is the rise of Data Science as an undergraduate discipline. Econometrics has always had better hiring stats than other econ subdisciplines, and historically, most Econ adjacent jobs were largely data cleansing, analysis, and benchmarking. On the other hand, math, statistics, and coding is hard, and a large portion of Econ undergrads (primarily at non-target programs) lacked the wherewithal or ability to tackle Baby Rudin or a data structures class. In a lot of cases, their professors themselves lacked significant mathematical or econometrics sophistication. What ended up happening was a glut of Econ majors who lacked the skills that were in demand in the Econ space (anything econometrics adjacent). Now that Data Science as an undergrad disciple has arisen, a number of jobs that historically would have hired an Econ major even if they lacked some technical sophistication have switched to hiring Data Science majors. Additionally, Econ majors who had significant maths/stats/cs backgrounds usually ended up double majoring or minoring in those disciplines already. And finally, at the top Econ undergrad programs, departments had already been extremely adamant about requiring their students to build maths/stats/cs sophistication beyond being a Stata monkey. The fact that even undergrad Government majors at Harvard are expected to do statistical modelling at the statistics major level, and often take CS109 as well highlights how deeply computational the social science has become, and a large portion of undergrads just aren't cut out for that. To paraphrase my friend: If you as an Econ undergrad cannot tackle Baby Rudin by your senior year, you have no employable future aside maybe law school, which itself is an increasingly losing proposition. You most likely won't do real analysis at the Baby Rudin level on a daily basis (if ever), but it's a positive signal about your mathematical and computational ability. That said, CS/CE/EECS grads shouldn't be high and mighty either. I've seen programs in the US increasingly make core classes like circuits, computer architecture, data structures, OS, systems programming, and even algorithms beyond discrete structures optional. The ideal of democratizing education is great, but should not come at the expense of foundational knowledge.

ActorNightly 9mo ago
Its simpler then that - everyone is facing a hiring crunch because everyone is preparing to weather massive economic downturn as foreign investment pulls out of United States.
- alephnerd 9mo ago
  Not exactly, and I say this as someone on the boards of multiple companies and have previously been a hiring manager. It's a employer's market now and new grads in a number of disciples are increasingly underprepared aside from a handful of target programs. Furthermore, most companies can limit hiring to at most 15 target programs nationally and maybe 3-4 local programs and get by. For example, a program like UIUC graduates around 1200 CS and CE majors a year from a program with a 4-6% acceptance rate. Just limiting hiring only to UIUC undergrads who pass hiring standards would be enough to fill an entire new grad class. Same with UMich (~1.5k CS/CE undergrads a year), Cal (~1k CS/EECS undergrads a year), and a handful of other target programs. And if we feel those candidates are overpriced, we can arbitrage talent globally if needed. I've mentioned this multiple times on HN as well. Furthermore, the Econ hiring crisis has been going on for a decade.
  - ActorNightly 9mo ago
    You are missing the bigger picture. The stock market (which determines overall hiring) is propped up by large cap Tech, which is currently riding on AI, which is currently riding on TSMC. US politically is going down the drain. Its a fuse that can only be extinguished by Trumps health issues. China knows this, and is already doing preparations to invade Taiwan should US significantly weaken. Every other metric that you are see is secondary to this. Big tech hired like crazy during pandemic to grow for cheap cost, and then fired a whole bunch of people later. Companies dgaf about standards, they can essentially brute force stuff with enough headcount and higher salaries. And now, everyone is watching and waiting to see what will happen.
    - alephnerd 9mo ago