Is there an org that tracks tech employment more closely than the BLS? I still don’t know what to make of the gulf between my observed experience and the larger job market.
Anecdotally, more people I know have been laid off in the past year than I’ve ever seen before. I’ve been laid off twice in under 18 months, and am currently going on three months without a job.
And with the caveat that they are both echo chambers, the consistent sentiment I’ve seen here and on LinkedIn is that this is the worst tech job market since the Great Recession. Is tech really that uniquely sensitive to interest rates while the rest of the economy doesn’t care?
It doesn't get as far down as software or computing-related occupations, but these would fall under the broader "professional and related occupations." This seemingly encompasses most white collar work and it has the third-lowest unemployment rate, behind only maintenance and repair operations and management and finance.
Obviously, a lot of what you feel is happening will be colored by the particular people you know. It's probably wrong to even think of that as "tech employment." My wife and I both work for software companies. I don't personally know anyone who has been laid off in the past year. But I live in Texas and we both work in defense software. San Francisco adjacent web tech is not the entirety of "tech."
You're pretty lucky to be unaffected. I'm not in defense, but just off the top of my head Lockheed is doing layoffs in CT due to the loss of FARA. Raytheon is continuing their layoff death spiral and shutting down some stuff in Texas. Boeing is hemorrhaging people and money for obvious reasons.
I have yet to see any source that proves 174 is the sole or major reason for the downturn. If you have something that suggests otherwise that, please do share.
As far as I was able to surmise, after becoming interested in the topic last year, it was a combination of factors: interest rates, 174, over hiring during 2020-2022, over estimating future demand for digital goods/services during the covid, lack of cheap money for funding unprofitable businesses, AI hype, and probably other factors.
The most logical answer is multiple events/factors all within a short span of time, rather than one single thing being the sole reason for the downturn.
The changes to the market are not just in the US though. Admittedly the US has ripple affects worldwide, but if you take the UK for example, the contracting market is basically non-existant now.
> The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for April was revised down by 57,000, from
+165,000 to +108,000, and the change for May was revised down by 54,000, from +272,000 to
+218,000. With these revisions, employment in April and May combined is 111,000 lower than
previously reported. (Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from
businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the
recalculation of seasonal factors.)
Professional and business services seem to be down. So are temporary help services. I think chatgpt is "cutting the fat" of those jobs. This seems rough.
The average weekly wage is 1200$. Seems like what most master degrees can command. Oof. The median is probably much lower.
Anecdotally, more people I know have been laid off in the past year than I’ve ever seen before. I’ve been laid off twice in under 18 months, and am currently going on three months without a job.
And with the caveat that they are both echo chambers, the consistent sentiment I’ve seen here and on LinkedIn is that this is the worst tech job market since the Great Recession. Is tech really that uniquely sensitive to interest rates while the rest of the economy doesn’t care?
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