this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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It’s funny how at least American employers act like we’re not at full employment. While the market isn’t as good for employees as it was about a year ago, the employees still have more leverage than the employers.
It’s not quite that simple. The job market is pretty wonky right now. Around 180,000 tech workers got laid off at the beginning of the year (including myself) and even in high-level somewhat niche roles, I see job postings that have 300-1200 applicants.
We posted for a support team member. Got over 200 applications. Many were programmers. Some quite senior. This is in Australia.
From certain perspectives it’s very hard to feel like it’s a job-seeker’s market. Programmers clamoring for a support role is a sign of people desperate to get a paycheck.
Indeed. The position went to the most appropriately qualified for the job (great people skills, self managed, loves writing, good phone manner, etc). The overqualified / differently qualified (programmers for example) didn't get a look in.
As it should be. But I feel bad for people who are forced to jeopardize their career to keep food on the table. The tech industry has some serious problems right now with the massive stock buybacks and executive salaries at the same time as layoff after layoff is happening. It’s all optimized for short-term stockholder value but not establishing a stable and cohesive workforce.
I'd be curious to see how many of those programmers are overemployed (working multiple jobs secretly) and just blast their resume out to every IT job.
I know that’s a thing that happens but man, I like my free time too much to imagine ever doing it.
That's crazy. We can almost never fill our support positions. Granted, the pay is nowhere near development salaries, so why would decent devs lower themselves to support roles?
Source: been in support for almost a decade, not good enough to be an actual dev
With all those laid off people searching at the same time it's also very hard for anyone with pretty much zero work experience on their resume trying to break into the workforce.
100%. A ton of people are being forced to downvalue their experience just to start getting a paycheck again. It’s gotta be brutal for the entry-level set.
Just wait, in about 10 to 20 years, people will be complaining that not enough young people are doing those jobs anymore. (Some people already are to an extent, lol. They probably have no idea about this though.)
What a horrible situation. I hope that everyone is able to find sustainable work. I can't imagine suddenly losing most of my salary while being left with the same bills.
Sorry kids, not enough bootstraps to go around.*
* this will not excuse you from being held accountable for your station
I'll go ahead and tell you. It's absolutely terrifying. Especially when you have a mortgage. I was laid off on July 5th and took an entry level tech job just to pay the bills. I try not to think about the 49% pay cut and I'm just glad my wife and I don't have kids.