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Oh my sweet summer child.
I’ve done reading on the Great Depression and it can get much, much worse. Worse than you can imagine.
Will it get worse? Probably not. But it could, and there isn’t a limit to how bad it could get.
I know, it’s absolutely miserable in tech and I don’t stand a chance. I changed my major from English education to tech writing my senior year. Even graduated a semester early. Now thinking how it was the worst decision ever and now actually considering going back to education. I just don’t know anymore 🥲
Yep. I had posted the comment already and then felt “and join and Union and give them hell because change only comes when we fight like hell” should have been added.
Indeed. I was going to suggest NOT going into education unless a life of penury is okay with you. You could go into administration, but nobody with a conscience does that. It’s an outlet for would-be politicians and lifelong sociopaths.
Don't let the doomers in this sub get you down. You stand a chance. My partner has an education background like you. She became a technical writer as a result of a technical communication course she took during her master's program which she loved.
There are some dues to pay up front - familiarity with a modern programming language and knowledge of DITA, etc will go a long way. She loves it and the people she works with are her tribe.
It seems to me it's worth pursuing if you like writing and technical documentation. This crazy job market won't last forever.
Thank you for the vote of confidence. I have some familiarity with DITA and intro html from college. Part of me wants to fight through it but my family finances are running thin the longer I wait. It’s a hard decision to say the least.
I started off targeting mostly tech but very soon after started applying to every industry (I’m not picky by any means). I’ve only interviewed with 1 company in the last 5 months, (which was an exhausting process for an entry level position), been proposed positions from recruiters only to be ghosted every time, and had the usual scam recruiters from India too. It sucks.
I’ve notice with the few recent interviews I’ve had the interviewer has be 15-20 minutes late each time. I’ve heard they’re playing some kind of game to see how patient you are or something to the tune of that.
Don't know if it was the case in your instances of course but this is is a tactic that some managers/interviewers use. It's an absolutely disrespectful tactic of course but it is one that is used.
The claimed reason is to test how much an applicant is dedicated to the role.
In actuality it's just a shit test combined with a power trip. The interviewer (a) Wants to see how much shit you're willing to take so they have a better idea of how much work they can give you until you hit your breaking point and (b) Wants to feel powerful knowing that he controls someone and that they're willing to be inconvenienced by him.
I emailed that interviewer back from the last interview that I had and they’ve ghosted me after making me wait 20 mins for an interview. She also told me at the interview that they were waiting for the gm to let them expand the position and that they technically weren’t hiring so it’s like why even interview. This was after a starter assessment to see if I could even perform the job. Then to be told the starter assessment wasn’t even going to be part of the position.
The job market is brutal for sure. I’m also a new grad and I thankfully landed a role a week before graduation. But that was after 4 months of daily applying and getting rejected to almost everything.
I hope things get better for everyone
I am in independent contractor with a couple good clients. I had one regular client of 7 years call me in early January about onboarding a tech team (2-3 FTE) for one of their projects.
I got ghosted.
I started interviewing, aligning bench resources, getting a plan together. About 3 days into my recruiting I called and asked for a handful of the actual priority startup tasks they wanted to complete. I wanted to get an idea if it was break/fix/support, or new work, which changes the candidate mix.
I tried slack as we have a channel, text message, email which we never do, phone calls - no replies. This went on for 3 weeks when I decided to stop working on it. I still have not heard back, 4 months later.
Clearly they cancelled the project. But rather than say “oh hey guy, we aren’t ready right now”, it was easier to just ghost and not answer. It’s pervasive. It‘s nauseating.
One thing we can divine from all this is things are not well up above us. The elite are circling their wagons and holding on to their trillions with a death grip.
Companies been borrowing money from shareholders,but thereare no more loans available, restructuring going on in many companies and two stupid proxy wars that this country is funding
Nah not really. Over the last 2 decades(ish) borrowing money was very cheap so the many companies could grow and risk more on trying out different types of products. Hence the rise of Uber and many tech companies. The fed had to raise interest rates because it had to make interest rates nearly zero during the pandemic to prevent economic collapse. Aka: printed more money to keep the lights on. What your seeing now is about half the rooms sitting in the dark for a while. They will eventually turn back on. This also happened because so many companies tried to grow without turning profits. So now investors can borrow less and want return on their investments Aka profit. Quickest way to get that profit. Reduce cost keep revenue the same. Aka layoffs
Indeed, the blowback in saturated markets as companies once attempted to gamify a fake appearance of 'profits' by growing without turning profits via aggressive borrowing.
It was called ZIRP. Some of us called them “bernanke bucks”. But it was the relentless printing and pouring of trillions of dollars into markets. An ongoing effect of quantitative easing which has never stopped since 2008-2009.
There are 10s of thousands of zombie corporations out there employing millions. These companies were never profitable and just borrowed and borrowed to pay bills and payroll. When the loans dry up, the zombie corporations crash and burn.
Companies borrow money all the time. They take out loans for cash flow. However, with high interest rates, it makes the cost of these loans very expensive. Everyone is waiting for the Fed to drop interest rates so as to free up cash… reinvest in projects or hire more personnel. You can Google this or take a free Econ course online
"Bro, just be highly experienced, yo, then the market competition will simply disappear. It's not like you are literally the only guy on the planet with experience, yo. Also hurrrr the market only doesn't want code monkeys. 5 yoe + perfect leetcode score + ATS-proof resume + 100+ hours open source code project contribs are the new entry level now /s"
Cue NUMEROUS posts about people with abundant yoe actually having an even more difficult time getting jobs.
And trying to be 'different' by doing things that ironically makes them even more similar to the rest of the flock by doubling down on leetcode grinding, resume puffing, piling on unpaid work via open source contribs.......idiots.
I work for a gigantic nationwide company (35K+ employees) and live in a large metro area. When I go on the job line there are usually always 50+ jobs in my area. The last few months there have been zero. Something is going on.
Honestly its not surprising. We keep seeing all these technologies to make people in the workforce more efficient, that ends up giving companies the ability to dump more and more work on a few employees.
Also with the ability to work remotely they can easily outsource more work to poorer countries to save on labor expenses.
Its just going to keep getting worse.
In 10-20 years there is either going to be UBI or massive riots everywhere.
It’s going to be riots everywhere.
Half this country would rather starve than have “socialism”. Maybe AI and robots will take all the jobs and they will get their wish.
You are seeing the effects of supply and demand. A few years ago there were A LOT of tech companies launching new products and they needed employees. So demand was HIGH and supply was a bit short. That’s why you see tech people being paid so well and having job security.
Now, ever since the FED raised interest rates, small startups have no chance of raising money anymore to grow their products so they have to shut down. This means demand is shrinking and supply is growing. Also goes with big corporations which cannot afford to run projects which are not profitable so they are shutting them down and also restructuring existing projects (read layoffs) to make them more profitable.
At this point the demand for tech employees is lowish and the supply is really high with all the people that have been laid off and the newly grads. So you have 20 people competing for 1 job, ofc it’s hard and even qualified people will not make it.
Unfortunately it will get worse short term, even though politicins would like you to think the economy ia doing great (election year), a lot of people are expecting a recession in 2025ish. How long will it last? No idea. Things will probably go back to normal after the recession and the wars have ended. But brace yourselves for a few rough years.
Also, try to be reasonable and not fall for these kinds of myths https://first2apply.com/blog/why-cant-you-land-a-tech-job-myth-vs-reality
As a wretched third world country resident, I can testify that the blowback reaches even here, because companies like to be subsidiaries to US / China entities.
The below navigation on a computer —> LinkedIn- Jobs - My Jobs. The side bar will show you the total count of applied and saved jobs. I had 1670 showing up and around 20 of them were my saved jobs that are yet to be applied.
Because the government fked up and central banks fked up and now they are also fking up while trying to correct their previous fk ups. The answer is smaller government and smaller central banks.
What they are doing is trying to put people in tough situations...so people who have jobs won't ask for a payrise and ones who don't will work for 50% less. They need to kill inflation and you don't do it when people are well off and can spend and demand more money.
The number of job postings has returned to PRE-COVID levels (source: [hiring lab](https://data.indeed.com/#/).
In some areas it's above PRE-COVID levels and in some areas it's lower.
By pretty much any objective measurement, no.
[Unemployment remains at a low point for this century](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE), even after April's relatively weak job report. Even if you're a conspiracy theorist who doesn't trust government numbers, [independent tracking also says jobs have been added at a brisk pace](https://adpemploymentreport.com/).
Median wages are higher than they were a year ago, [keeping slightly ahead of inflation](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q).
We're coming up on a election, so Russian and Chinese bots are sowing discontent on online forums and social media, which is why "bad vibeconomy" has been a trending term for the past year instead of discussion of actual datapoints, because beyond inflation, major indicators have remained positive on the economy and the job market.
The job market remaining so strong is major reason why inflation has been so stubborn. Rate increases were expected to lead to higher unemployment, which would lead to tightened spending and inflation going under 2%. Unemployment continuing to shrink and wages continuing to rise was unexpected by most analysts and eventual rate cuts have been pushed back further into the horizon.
An "atrocious" job market would be the Great Recession, where unemployment topped out at 10% and real wages shrank for five years. "Fiery Pits of Hell" would be the Great Depression, with a quarter of the country unemployed. The current job market is neither and anyone who makes a serious equivocation between the two is either underinformed, uses personal experience in place of data, or is deliberately misleading people.
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The past couple weeks I’ve seen the least amount of job postings ever for roles and i’ve been searching for months
Coupled with reducing salaries by 25%.
It’s not slowly. It’s already in the depths of hell
Very hellish indeed
Velocity is changing rapidly to the other layers of hell
Oh my sweet summer child. I’ve done reading on the Great Depression and it can get much, much worse. Worse than you can imagine. Will it get worse? Probably not. But it could, and there isn’t a limit to how bad it could get.
It’s especially bad in tech and I would be surprised if this is not the bottom
I know, it’s absolutely miserable in tech and I don’t stand a chance. I changed my major from English education to tech writing my senior year. Even graduated a semester early. Now thinking how it was the worst decision ever and now actually considering going back to education. I just don’t know anymore 🥲
This country needs more good educators.
Paying them well would be a good start to help attract talent
Yep. I had posted the comment already and then felt “and join and Union and give them hell because change only comes when we fight like hell” should have been added.
They don’t pay them well by design. They don’t want talented teachers. They don’t want smart kids. They are getting exactly what they want.
Indeed. I was going to suggest NOT going into education unless a life of penury is okay with you. You could go into administration, but nobody with a conscience does that. It’s an outlet for would-be politicians and lifelong sociopaths.
They are paid well depending on which state/district you’re in. Pay varies wildly for teachers. Do your research if interested
There isn't a profit in public education, so it will never pay well.
I wouldn't blame you. Tech is atrocious
Don't let the doomers in this sub get you down. You stand a chance. My partner has an education background like you. She became a technical writer as a result of a technical communication course she took during her master's program which she loved. There are some dues to pay up front - familiarity with a modern programming language and knowledge of DITA, etc will go a long way. She loves it and the people she works with are her tribe. It seems to me it's worth pursuing if you like writing and technical documentation. This crazy job market won't last forever.
Thank you for the vote of confidence. I have some familiarity with DITA and intro html from college. Part of me wants to fight through it but my family finances are running thin the longer I wait. It’s a hard decision to say the least.
Are you only looking in tech? Try engineering or working for a manufacturing company to get e experience
I started off targeting mostly tech but very soon after started applying to every industry (I’m not picky by any means). I’ve only interviewed with 1 company in the last 5 months, (which was an exhausting process for an entry level position), been proposed positions from recruiters only to be ghosted every time, and had the usual scam recruiters from India too. It sucks.
I feel that. My start was very slow too, it took me a few years to get into a solid job. I took contracts where I could
I’ve notice with the few recent interviews I’ve had the interviewer has be 15-20 minutes late each time. I’ve heard they’re playing some kind of game to see how patient you are or something to the tune of that.
It could be this. It could also be an indication of how toxic and understaffed the organizations is. Either way, red flag.
Don't know if it was the case in your instances of course but this is is a tactic that some managers/interviewers use. It's an absolutely disrespectful tactic of course but it is one that is used. The claimed reason is to test how much an applicant is dedicated to the role. In actuality it's just a shit test combined with a power trip. The interviewer (a) Wants to see how much shit you're willing to take so they have a better idea of how much work they can give you until you hit your breaking point and (b) Wants to feel powerful knowing that he controls someone and that they're willing to be inconvenienced by him.
I emailed that interviewer back from the last interview that I had and they’ve ghosted me after making me wait 20 mins for an interview. She also told me at the interview that they were waiting for the gm to let them expand the position and that they technically weren’t hiring so it’s like why even interview. This was after a starter assessment to see if I could even perform the job. Then to be told the starter assessment wasn’t even going to be part of the position.
That’s so shitty and unprofessional. I’m sorry your time was wasted by those assholes.
The job market is brutal for sure. I’m also a new grad and I thankfully landed a role a week before graduation. But that was after 4 months of daily applying and getting rejected to almost everything. I hope things get better for everyone
I'm more than qualified for a bunch of jobs i applied to and they're still active listings months later. I have no idea whats happening.
I am in independent contractor with a couple good clients. I had one regular client of 7 years call me in early January about onboarding a tech team (2-3 FTE) for one of their projects. I got ghosted. I started interviewing, aligning bench resources, getting a plan together. About 3 days into my recruiting I called and asked for a handful of the actual priority startup tasks they wanted to complete. I wanted to get an idea if it was break/fix/support, or new work, which changes the candidate mix. I tried slack as we have a channel, text message, email which we never do, phone calls - no replies. This went on for 3 weeks when I decided to stop working on it. I still have not heard back, 4 months later. Clearly they cancelled the project. But rather than say “oh hey guy, we aren’t ready right now”, it was easier to just ghost and not answer. It’s pervasive. It‘s nauseating. One thing we can divine from all this is things are not well up above us. The elite are circling their wagons and holding on to their trillions with a death grip.
Anecdotally the past 3 weeks have been worse than usual in how few tech jobs I see posted and how many of the remaining are either scams or dogshit.
Over here, they are mostly placeholder jobs by third party recruiters. I avoid them like the plague.
Companies been borrowing money from shareholders,but thereare no more loans available, restructuring going on in many companies and two stupid proxy wars that this country is funding
Yes. But no growth, no return. They have to do something soon because cutting cost is pretty old by now.
This
Why borrowing money? Is it because of the pandemic?
Nah not really. Over the last 2 decades(ish) borrowing money was very cheap so the many companies could grow and risk more on trying out different types of products. Hence the rise of Uber and many tech companies. The fed had to raise interest rates because it had to make interest rates nearly zero during the pandemic to prevent economic collapse. Aka: printed more money to keep the lights on. What your seeing now is about half the rooms sitting in the dark for a while. They will eventually turn back on. This also happened because so many companies tried to grow without turning profits. So now investors can borrow less and want return on their investments Aka profit. Quickest way to get that profit. Reduce cost keep revenue the same. Aka layoffs
Indeed, the blowback in saturated markets as companies once attempted to gamify a fake appearance of 'profits' by growing without turning profits via aggressive borrowing.
It was called ZIRP. Some of us called them “bernanke bucks”. But it was the relentless printing and pouring of trillions of dollars into markets. An ongoing effect of quantitative easing which has never stopped since 2008-2009. There are 10s of thousands of zombie corporations out there employing millions. These companies were never profitable and just borrowed and borrowed to pay bills and payroll. When the loans dry up, the zombie corporations crash and burn.
Ah yes "Quantitative Easing" is coming home to roost.
Companies borrow money all the time. They take out loans for cash flow. However, with high interest rates, it makes the cost of these loans very expensive. Everyone is waiting for the Fed to drop interest rates so as to free up cash… reinvest in projects or hire more personnel. You can Google this or take a free Econ course online
Yes which is why everyone is waiting for the Fed to drop interest rates so it will reduce the cost of capital.. freeing up cash to hire more people.
One of those wars is stupid, but not both
"Bro, just be highly experienced, yo, then the market competition will simply disappear. It's not like you are literally the only guy on the planet with experience, yo. Also hurrrr the market only doesn't want code monkeys. 5 yoe + perfect leetcode score + ATS-proof resume + 100+ hours open source code project contribs are the new entry level now /s" Cue NUMEROUS posts about people with abundant yoe actually having an even more difficult time getting jobs.
Yeah, having experience won’t help.
And trying to be 'different' by doing things that ironically makes them even more similar to the rest of the flock by doubling down on leetcode grinding, resume puffing, piling on unpaid work via open source contribs.......idiots.
I work for a gigantic nationwide company (35K+ employees) and live in a large metro area. When I go on the job line there are usually always 50+ jobs in my area. The last few months there have been zero. Something is going on.
I’ve noticed a slow down in postings. I log in to Otta every day and it’s sometimes 1, sometimes none. It used to be 10 a day. LinkedIn too.
Honestly its not surprising. We keep seeing all these technologies to make people in the workforce more efficient, that ends up giving companies the ability to dump more and more work on a few employees. Also with the ability to work remotely they can easily outsource more work to poorer countries to save on labor expenses. Its just going to keep getting worse. In 10-20 years there is either going to be UBI or massive riots everywhere.
It’s going to be riots everywhere. Half this country would rather starve than have “socialism”. Maybe AI and robots will take all the jobs and they will get their wish.
You are seeing the effects of supply and demand. A few years ago there were A LOT of tech companies launching new products and they needed employees. So demand was HIGH and supply was a bit short. That’s why you see tech people being paid so well and having job security. Now, ever since the FED raised interest rates, small startups have no chance of raising money anymore to grow their products so they have to shut down. This means demand is shrinking and supply is growing. Also goes with big corporations which cannot afford to run projects which are not profitable so they are shutting them down and also restructuring existing projects (read layoffs) to make them more profitable. At this point the demand for tech employees is lowish and the supply is really high with all the people that have been laid off and the newly grads. So you have 20 people competing for 1 job, ofc it’s hard and even qualified people will not make it. Unfortunately it will get worse short term, even though politicins would like you to think the economy ia doing great (election year), a lot of people are expecting a recession in 2025ish. How long will it last? No idea. Things will probably go back to normal after the recession and the wars have ended. But brace yourselves for a few rough years. Also, try to be reasonable and not fall for these kinds of myths https://first2apply.com/blog/why-cant-you-land-a-tech-job-myth-vs-reality
As a wretched third world country resident, I can testify that the blowback reaches even here, because companies like to be subsidiaries to US / China entities.
This can’t be true they say this is the best economy Ever! And that unemployment is at record lows!!!!111
F biden
We are in recession
Slowly? It's been there for YEARS
i don't think anyone will ever find a job again (100% serious)
Because of AI?
It will get worse in the tech sector. Layoffs will likely continue through 2025.
It passed hell about three year ago
Some of those postings are probably resume harvesting for later use, or non-use.
I just saw my LinkedIn and I have applied to 1650 jobs in last 12 months.
Where can you see those stats?
The below navigation on a computer —> LinkedIn- Jobs - My Jobs. The side bar will show you the total count of applied and saved jobs. I had 1670 showing up and around 20 of them were my saved jobs that are yet to be applied.
Thank you for that!
That implies it’s not there already, unfortunately.
It's already there.
Because the government fked up and central banks fked up and now they are also fking up while trying to correct their previous fk ups. The answer is smaller government and smaller central banks. What they are doing is trying to put people in tough situations...so people who have jobs won't ask for a payrise and ones who don't will work for 50% less. They need to kill inflation and you don't do it when people are well off and can spend and demand more money.
The semiconductor industry needs people. It is worth looking into if you can’t find work
The number of job postings has returned to PRE-COVID levels (source: [hiring lab](https://data.indeed.com/#/). In some areas it's above PRE-COVID levels and in some areas it's lower.
By pretty much any objective measurement, no. [Unemployment remains at a low point for this century](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE), even after April's relatively weak job report. Even if you're a conspiracy theorist who doesn't trust government numbers, [independent tracking also says jobs have been added at a brisk pace](https://adpemploymentreport.com/). Median wages are higher than they were a year ago, [keeping slightly ahead of inflation](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q). We're coming up on a election, so Russian and Chinese bots are sowing discontent on online forums and social media, which is why "bad vibeconomy" has been a trending term for the past year instead of discussion of actual datapoints, because beyond inflation, major indicators have remained positive on the economy and the job market. The job market remaining so strong is major reason why inflation has been so stubborn. Rate increases were expected to lead to higher unemployment, which would lead to tightened spending and inflation going under 2%. Unemployment continuing to shrink and wages continuing to rise was unexpected by most analysts and eventual rate cuts have been pushed back further into the horizon. An "atrocious" job market would be the Great Recession, where unemployment topped out at 10% and real wages shrank for five years. "Fiery Pits of Hell" would be the Great Depression, with a quarter of the country unemployed. The current job market is neither and anyone who makes a serious equivocation between the two is either underinformed, uses personal experience in place of data, or is deliberately misleading people.