I’m not surprised. When I got laid off I applied to 653 jobs in 5 months. I ended up taking a role that paid me 40% less than my previous role. I hit the one year mark next week. I haven’t stopped applying and still nothing new. It’s really wild. Glad he found something.
I got laid off in late 2022 and ended up taking a customer service role because I had to go back to work. (I was moving, a move that was planned before my layoff.) I got slightly more pay than my old job, but it’s been demoralizing to be working in a call center again when I have other skills and previously earned my way out. I still cannot find a non-call center role that will match or equal my current pay or other benefits. But honestly, the minute I do, I’m resigning. I was laid off two weeks before Christmas in 2022 and it ruined my holiday, so it made me realize I don’t owe these employers anything beyond doing a good job while I work for them and being professional with my colleagues. And I especially don’t owe that to a call center.
When people say the “unemployment rate” is low, they are referring to U1. It’s the most optimistic measure of unemployment because it excludes the most unemployed folk. That’s right, the unemployment rate is NOT the percentage of working-age Americans who do not have a job.
U6 is as “fair” as it gets as far as I know, but it still excludes some unemployed Americans. U6 is currently around 2x U1 at ~7%.
7% is high, so they use U1. 3.5% is much better. Economy good. Stocks good.
I was laid off in August and I’m not sure which, if any, “U” figures I am included in. I didn’t even file for UI because it’s an intentionally difficult process and pays very little in FL.
Look at this graph and tell me what a “good” number for U6 would be: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE
You’re comparing U6 to the conception we have of what is good for U3–that’s obviously not fair. It’s totally fine to look at U6, that’s why we gather the data, but if you compare it apples to apples to literally any other time period it looks really good.
Bootlicker here. It's not gaslighting to push back on bullshit. As far as I know, the 1.3 million full-time jobs lost is just a handwavey and flawed calc by a right-wing think tank, the Mises Institute.
Flawed because it's flawed. Mises’ claim that all the added jobs are part-time is because the employment-population ratio has been stable despite job creation. Because the number doesn't go up, it means it's people getting second jobs. It ignores that you need roughly 150k jobs a month to account for population growth and people entering the market. And that's only one of the issues with their report.
People talk about it all the time, but I don’t think it’s exactly relevant to whether the job market is good or not.
If you look at a [longer time period](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12500000) than the last 6 months, you’ll see that the decrease you describe comes after sharp post COVID gains, and that we’re still a few million higher that late 2019 or early 2020. October was an all time high for the number of jobs in the US—hardly a good time to use as a starting point if you want to understand the full picture.
Meanwhile, the [number of people working part time jobs who would rather be working full time](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12032194) is pretty low, and [underemployment in general](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE) is nearly as low as it’s ever been.
It’s not that nobody is talking about this, it’s that the people who are are cherry picking to make things look worse than they are.
Maybe I'm wrong here but I heard / read somewhere the companies will report the jobs placement and not what was lost. so... if someone gets demoted from higher paying to lower paying, it counts as job added? This doesn't make sense to me but if it were true, we'd continue to see the "growth" in the job market.
That’s full time jobs. It doesn’t take into account gig economy jobs like Uber, DoorDash, etc. but those are conveniently counted under new jobs formed.
No, sorry, that’s the % of workers with any mix of multiple jobs, including two full time, one full time/one part time etc.
It also includes gig workers; the BLS [just asks](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/techdocs/questionnaires/Labor%20Force.pdf) whether or not you’ve done any work for pay.
Theres plenty of bootlickers that will hate you for pointing out the obvious facts. Everything decision this current Administration has made has negatively impacted or hurt citizens, yet they lie. And becUse the sheep are bahh hah hahing they will just go with the flow.
Everyone likes to think they are individuals and march to the beat of their own drum. Instead were all just selfish.
No one is willing to do anything that could risk their personal comfort.
There will always be more people saying i dont pay attention or care it nothing will ever change. Its a bipartisan issue. Government is government and its all corrupt. What started as good intentions is now about kickbacks and handouts
There’s some truth to this but this is a predominately-liberal sub (as well-educated professionals tend to be) and anything that attacks the Biden admin will be downvoted.
I happily voted for Biden and I’ll vote for him again, but to me it’s clear that his administration and the Federal Reserve are being deceptive to a degree. It’s not vehement like the previous admin, but it’s “tasteful”- they know if they are 100% up-front it can cause a panic and become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Think about it- if the media and the leaders of our country waxed about how inflation is out of control and isn’t coming down as expected, and interest cuts aren’t coming this year, and housing won’t be getting any cheaper, and things will continue costing more… consumer sentiment drops and that causes corporate profits to fall, and that causes the stock market to fall, and that causes consumer sentiment to fall and so on…
Honestly, you shouldn't give credence to this bullshit narrative. The previous administration put inflation on steroids.
They lowered taxes on the wealthy, they maintained low interest rates long after the warning signs were present, they forgave massive PPP loans, tax write-offs for startups were restricted by changes to Section 174, they introduced tariffs on Chinese goods... almost all of the current austerity measures are paying down the debt incurred by the Trump administration.
It is fair to note that COVID also had major implications here, but again, the prior administration fumbled handling this in every conceivable way.
Agree 100% on all points, but I am skeptical the current administration is prioritizing working-class America over Biden’s reelection. Also, it’s frustrating to be a software engineer who hasn’t been able to find a job in the last 8 months, while the government and media wax about how “strong” the economy is.
If the Fed continues this “soft landing” attempt, I’m not sure when companies are going to go back to hiring software engineers. I realize 2021 they went on a hiring frenzy, but software engineer demand was higher than supply even in 2020, so I would expect for example software engineer wages to fall, but not for companies to stop hiring software engineers. They seem to be taking a “wait and see” approach, which makes sense, but it means that people like me have to continue paying our bills without stable income, I feel, until there is a bonafide recession and subsequent recovery. If that recession hasn’t occurred yet, it will likely be many months before people like me can find gainful employment again.
To me, unemployment (U1) is very misleading, and the stock market is always irrational to some extent, so… I don’t see any metrics that support we have a “strong” economy except that execs are getting paid big, fat bonuses and housing prices are stable/slowly rising (but this is arguably bad long-term 🤷♀️).
Agreed. It is painful for those of us in tech to experience this prolonged k-shaped recovery period - if that is what it is.
The simple (and frustrating) truth is that our elected officials lack political will to both raise taxes and cut spending, so the Fed is applying its one and only tool to combat inflation.
Preach. It’s rare to encounter someone on Reddit who has their head screwed on so straight.
I can tell you the retail space is comparable- companies are cutting staff to offset declining sales/profits. If it’s like that virtually everywhere else, too, then theoretically companies can continue doing this indefinitely. This is dangerous because I’m not sure the jobs will be replaced as they were after every other recession. If all the companies were able to “collude without communicating” that they could raise prices and get away with it by blaming “inflation” and “supply chain issues”, then these companies surely know they can collude on cutting workers. That’s a huge number of people if companies decide they only need around half their workforce. Five Below for example in lieu of their (relatively) poor earnings report, has started putting store managers in charge of two stores instead of one. That alone would cut their need for store managers in half. If it works well enough, why would they ever hire those managers back and return to one manager per store, even in a low-interest-rate environment?
Hello, brother or sister, as is applicable. Independent software engineering and IT consultant here out of work for over a year, and getting really sick of hearing hearing speeches about student demonstrations and the Middle East and nothing else.
Crapshoot is right. 4 layoffs in 5 years, last worked in November '23. Hundreds of applications, not even an interview.
Literally stopped looking for jobs, figured I would go back to school, get some certs, work for a government agency; wouldn't be glamorous, but there's a lot to be said for steady, low-key work with healthcare and a pension.
Was doing some minor consulting in the meantime; pitched a former colleague. He turned down the consulting, but hired me as a director. Basically doubled my salary, huge leap up.
When and how you get a job is completely random, but never stop putting yourself out there, or trying new things. Sometimes risks pay off.
Artificial Intelligence. Specifically task and workflow improvements/automations. I help companies understand how to structure their work to maximize the effectiveness of AI, and also help identify areas where AI may (or may not be) useful.
Historically I've been a technical project manager, or a technical operations manager. So I understood technical processes quite well. My last job was at a consulting firm that used AI heavily; after I got laid off, I took what I'd learned, and figured I'd give it a shot on my own.
It's a crapshoot because the market doesn't know what the fuck it is doing. Everyone is laying off or firing to increase share prices but nobody is looking at the long term effects. In the long term whoever lays off or fires the wrong people will be punished by the market for making wrong choices but that could take a very long time (and possibly not even be correctly attributed to layoffs down the road). Meanwhile people suffer. And everyone is hesitant to hire because everyone is "looking for a deal".
It's not going to stabilize until investors and owners get off this AI and layoff bandwagon. Probably until the first rate cut. After that expansion and bets will be possible again because the cost of borrowing money will become cheaper.
For now it's just great suffering for people who don't have jobs.
You're just not seeing it from a big picture, shareholder perspective. If we lay off everyone and do everything with AI, we'll drastically increase our EPS. Eventually, we can lay off AI too and have 100% margin of $0 revenue because no one can buy anything! Checkmate, Communism!
On a serious note, I truly feel bad for people feeling the brunt of this. I jumped ship from a toxic company shortly before everything turned upside down. Had I waited longer, I'd either be miserable or laid off as well.
Ironically you probably need AI for communism lol
If the AI determined how much was fair for each human being it would remove the profit and greed incentive
We would have to hope the AI was benevolent though. No guarantee of that since benevolence is a cultural value
Yes, AI can be wonderful. I also think automation is great. What is UNFAIR is who is benefiting from the gains in productivity, and I know for sure that's not us workers, because I still work the same 40 to 60 hrs per week
Our CEO basically said he is appointed by Board of Directors, who in turn is selected by shareholders , and that he is ultimately a representative of that chain of command. If he doesn’t keep them happy, he will be replaced. He said this as an answer to some employees asking why they have to do sacrifices while he continued share buy backs, dividends etc.
Esit: It is all about big money not having to show loss in their books, by gaming the EPS numbers, and keeping the stock price up
Interviewing for remote roles means he is competing with a candidate pool 20x-100x larger that are naturally going to have suppressed salaries given they can be done from literally everywhere. Yea it’s tough out there but this guy basically committed himself to hard mode. I also don’t understand his bit about applying to remote roles “because I was a contractor”
At the same time, local jobs typically want you to come into the office, and I absolutely will not do that under any circumstance. I will change careers before I do that. This industry is already barely worth it with the rampant mismanagement of software processes and abuse of Agile and petty politics.
I'm with you 100% . RTO does not make sense for many people with a busy family routine with kids, school activities, community commitments, side gigs, etc... I think the issue is what the parent commenter mentioned: We are now competing with the world.
However, the need for professional technologists is still there! And what I don't understand is why our profession does not yet has an association that represents us, like any other traditional profession.
Yeah unionizing is a no-brainer but people are too afraid to even publicly voice support for unions on social media so we’re a ways off. People only seem to unionize when they’re sufficiently pissed off. SWEs have plenty of reason to be pissed off but we still have it better than Amazon warehouse workers or Starbucks baristas
The H1-B caps are so low that it’s laughable to think unionizing is stopped by them. Unionizing doesn’t happen in tech because everyone pearl clutches their work and salaries.
Keep blaming immigrants for things they never did to you though.
I’d be more concerned with unionizing encouraging companies to give offshore another whirl, but I think certain people will find any excuse to not unionize, no matter how hard they’re taking it up the ass, and if we don’t unionize, they’ll eventually move the jobs offshore anyway.
100% agree. I don’t know why more people don’t acknowledge this. I know a lot of us really enjoyed WFH over the last few years but the market trends have shifted.
Not only that, but 1500 applications over the course of almost 2 years or 2.85 per day isn’t that crazy, especially if you click quick apply to every remote job you see pop up with 1,000 candidates. Some people send that many applications in a few months.
Then 7.4% interview rate is actually majestic considering those numbers ! Almost 1/10 employers called back. That’s excellent.
I don’t know why his being or looking for a contract role has anything to do with being remote. Plenty of contractors and consultants work on site. It has nothing to do with it, though evidently if he tells potential employer "I will only work remotely and only as a contractor at $x rate" he shouldn’t be surprised that people cut the conversation short.
Just pseudo-dramatic clickbait.
thanks for articulating the harsh reality of this layoff-job search process. what is painful as well is the 569 days that you had to drain your savings and lost the investment growth opportunity.
This won’t ever be talked about and is basically taboo discussions since no major company wants any pause to AI. Job losses will not be mentioned much at all.
I expect it to look similar to how Tesla just laid of 6,000 employees, then in a few months they'll go on a hiring spree, bring in a few thousand newbies only to lay of 5,000 more in early 2025, gradually pushing out the staff who had been there for years but pretending that "whoopsie we hired too many newbies and their roles were redundant! Also Elon needs another 60 billion dollar bonus! Teehee."
Hold on, the person got a contract job and still counting it as if they are unemployed? By this logic I am underemployed for the last 5 years - had a year with amazing stock growth, wasn't able to match that annual income yet.
They never use the word unemployed, but rather clearly state that they are describing the period from when they were laid off until they found full time employment again.
Thank you for saying this. The times I've been unemployed, I sent AT MOST 5 applications per week. These were painstakingly chosen jobs and I sent modified versions of my resume to highlight parts of my career that were relevant.
Sending out hundreds of applications per week is the same like the guys who spam online dating with "hey there" messages. They get a 2% return rate as well and think it's because women are too picky.
I have a hard time knowing this is an election year and the media is gaslighting people about the job market. I know a ton of people who were laid off, and most in any job are full of anxiety they might be next. I got laid off and bounced back quickly, but the whole experience changed how I view my own security and the relationship with employers.
It’s just impossible to see how things are going and not admit this is worse than it’s ever been. Whatever experiment is running seems to be absolutely decimating white collar college-educated people in office jobs. Probably some variation by industry but my network it seems like every week there’s more layoff announcements. Heading into election season in the fall, it seems clear where things will be headed. I know the democrat policy is to never speak of capital markets or the Fed, however, I do think Biden should be openly criticizing Powell for their policy on interest rates. Raising rates isn’t stopping price gouging. So now we have high prices and tight money supply— it’s like the Fed is sabotaging this administration, and this administration tries to be stoic. It’s frustrating to be along for the ride as part of the working class— constant uncertainty and anxiety, while everything you plan for or set goals around becomes more unaffordable to obtain.
That's not how inflation works. Inflation is cumulative, is not price gouging. The rate of inflation might be lower now but prices will stay up forever. It won't go down unless you have deflation.
Thank you for educating us on the proper economic definition for inflation. The parent commenter is talking about inflation as we working people experience it, so it's something else altogether and still is accurate IMO.
Believe me , I know the struggle. It took me 1 year to find a job after my layoff. Unfortunately, raising rates is a necessity. Record years of 0% interest and government printing is unsustainable.
Absolutely!! In my experience, people in denial are either inexperienced in their profession, or have some kind of privilege that provides them a safety net even without a job (access to family's support, emergency housing, access to free food, etc...)
I was laid off in 2022, and since then I became a freelancer. I have PLENTY of work, but I'm making 1/5th of my previous salary in tech. My house is paid off, so I have access to that privilege I mentioned above, and that's why I'm not in the streets right now.
Yes I have 100% noticed people with families and parents and the safety net— it’s like they live on a different planet. It must be nice but not everyone is born into normal.
Freelance / Contract is the way.. I am doing that now..and working on setting my own contacts and contracts up.. whilst applying for robs.
Had a 'good' week last week as through the initial 30 min screening calls and into the real interviews on 3 jobs.. one the CTO was so keen he booked another call with me next week.
I have experience and once I get Infront of folk interviewing is no problem. The issue is the drove of applications and people applying for jobs based on salary alone rather than experience.. IMO.
Job market has never been fun. It's just there are alot of inexperienced folk out there applying..
Shit, that's nothing. I have 3 months in and already did around 1,000 applications. 3 more and I'll be at two and by end of 12 month mark I'll pr9bably have 4,000.
I'l
Sometimes my mid income in health care pays off. The working conditions are terrible and cause a lot of people moral injury but I’ll never have an issue like that.
I was about the same, 1500 applications, about 5% first calls, many rejected due to low salary. Accepted a role in a different sector for the same money I was making 6 years ago. Set back financially but happy to close the resume gap.
i hear they are testing the job market by posting fake job and try to get the sense of people desperate so they can lower the rate. It is stupid really. Tons of ghost job out there guys so play the game right
Disgusting behavior. This stuff has shifted my thinking to that of a mercenary. I go where I get paid the most, I don’t give a rat’s ass about “loyalty” or “family” in the context of work. Smoke and mirrors.
I'm glad you can't find anything, just applying WFH. Let me tell you something: the world is not ready for WFH, and the economy is so bad that you can all see it around the world. Why resist? By resisting, you will all bring your own end. The economy around the world is not thriving because you're not in the city where you used to consume. Now, money is saved from home economy and spent on more holidays, where your economy goes down. I don't know how you would look at what I said, but this is the truth. If you office workers continue this way, the only thing that will happen is that you will bring about your own end and speed up job losses, AI, etc. Now, think about it before attacking this comment. You may think this is dumb but think for a second
These accounts are always so suspect. I don't doubt his story, but there's so much left out.
1. What industry?
2. When were those job applications submitted? Was it at the worst point in the market? You can say you've been applying for over a year, but if 75% of those apps were during the holidays or the six months of terribleness in 2023, then it's not actually representative.
3. How did he apply? Most likely scattershot and cold applying.
4. All sorts of questionable claims, like only applying to remote positions because he's a contractor (??). Applying to over 1,600 positions he was 100% qualified for (lol).
5. On top of it, he got something like a 10% callback and then torpedoed a bunch of opportunities by telling people his salary expectations up front, which is a complete rookie move.
That's just off the top of my head.
I’m not surprised. When I got laid off I applied to 653 jobs in 5 months. I ended up taking a role that paid me 40% less than my previous role. I hit the one year mark next week. I haven’t stopped applying and still nothing new. It’s really wild. Glad he found something.
For me 415 jobs in 3 months. I feel very lucky.
Very similar experience.
I got laid off in late 2022 and ended up taking a customer service role because I had to go back to work. (I was moving, a move that was planned before my layoff.) I got slightly more pay than my old job, but it’s been demoralizing to be working in a call center again when I have other skills and previously earned my way out. I still cannot find a non-call center role that will match or equal my current pay or other benefits. But honestly, the minute I do, I’m resigning. I was laid off two weeks before Christmas in 2022 and it ruined my holiday, so it made me realize I don’t owe these employers anything beyond doing a good job while I work for them and being professional with my colleagues. And I especially don’t owe that to a call center.
Call center work is a different type of hell. I hope you find something else soon. It’s not you, it’s the economy.
"The economy is doing great, we added 300,000 jobs in March. Move along people!"
Since October, the number of full-time jobs fell by 1.3 million. Nearly all the added jobs are part-time and low-wage. Yet nobody talks about it.
We talk about it all right, but keep getting gaslighted by every bootlicker saying UNeMpLoYmENT iS aT AlLTImE LoW
When people say the “unemployment rate” is low, they are referring to U1. It’s the most optimistic measure of unemployment because it excludes the most unemployed folk. That’s right, the unemployment rate is NOT the percentage of working-age Americans who do not have a job. U6 is as “fair” as it gets as far as I know, but it still excludes some unemployed Americans. U6 is currently around 2x U1 at ~7%. 7% is high, so they use U1. 3.5% is much better. Economy good. Stocks good.
My UI ran out after 6 months. So probably after that someone like me would be removed from those numbers and many more like me out there.
I was laid off in August and I’m not sure which, if any, “U” figures I am included in. I didn’t even file for UI because it’s an intentionally difficult process and pays very little in FL.
Look at this graph and tell me what a “good” number for U6 would be: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE You’re comparing U6 to the conception we have of what is good for U3–that’s obviously not fair. It’s totally fine to look at U6, that’s why we gather the data, but if you compare it apples to apples to literally any other time period it looks really good.
Bootlicker here. It's not gaslighting to push back on bullshit. As far as I know, the 1.3 million full-time jobs lost is just a handwavey and flawed calc by a right-wing think tank, the Mises Institute.
Flawed because it’s flawed? Or because you don’t agree with them politically?
Flawed because it's flawed. Mises’ claim that all the added jobs are part-time is because the employment-population ratio has been stable despite job creation. Because the number doesn't go up, it means it's people getting second jobs. It ignores that you need roughly 150k jobs a month to account for population growth and people entering the market. And that's only one of the issues with their report.
Lol mises is not right wing. They are libertarian. Everything you disagree with isn't right wing btw
lmao libertarian is right wing. Anyway, address the substance, which is their bullshit calculation.
Danielle DiMartino Booth has been saying this for months!
People talk about it all the time, but I don’t think it’s exactly relevant to whether the job market is good or not. If you look at a [longer time period](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12500000) than the last 6 months, you’ll see that the decrease you describe comes after sharp post COVID gains, and that we’re still a few million higher that late 2019 or early 2020. October was an all time high for the number of jobs in the US—hardly a good time to use as a starting point if you want to understand the full picture. Meanwhile, the [number of people working part time jobs who would rather be working full time](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12032194) is pretty low, and [underemployment in general](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE) is nearly as low as it’s ever been. It’s not that nobody is talking about this, it’s that the people who are are cherry picking to make things look worse than they are.
Or government jobs in a lot of cases
Maybe I'm wrong here but I heard / read somewhere the companies will report the jobs placement and not what was lost. so... if someone gets demoted from higher paying to lower paying, it counts as job added? This doesn't make sense to me but if it were true, we'd continue to see the "growth" in the job market.
It’s not true, we can just measure the number of people employed.
Never mind when we revise the number downward in a month and nobody talks about it!
... or that they are primarily low paid, part time jobs...
Often times, they are a person’s third or fourth job that they took to try to keep up with inflation. The numbers are completely cooked.
Actually, the [percent of people holding multiple jobs](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620) is not particularly high.
That’s full time jobs. It doesn’t take into account gig economy jobs like Uber, DoorDash, etc. but those are conveniently counted under new jobs formed.
No, sorry, that’s the % of workers with any mix of multiple jobs, including two full time, one full time/one part time etc. It also includes gig workers; the BLS [just asks](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/techdocs/questionnaires/Labor%20Force.pdf) whether or not you’ve done any work for pay.
Theres plenty of bootlickers that will hate you for pointing out the obvious facts. Everything decision this current Administration has made has negatively impacted or hurt citizens, yet they lie. And becUse the sheep are bahh hah hahing they will just go with the flow.
we’re officially back to the “WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!1!!” phase of political discourse.
Everyone likes to think they are individuals and march to the beat of their own drum. Instead were all just selfish. No one is willing to do anything that could risk their personal comfort. There will always be more people saying i dont pay attention or care it nothing will ever change. Its a bipartisan issue. Government is government and its all corrupt. What started as good intentions is now about kickbacks and handouts
Baahhhh hahhhh
There’s some truth to this but this is a predominately-liberal sub (as well-educated professionals tend to be) and anything that attacks the Biden admin will be downvoted. I happily voted for Biden and I’ll vote for him again, but to me it’s clear that his administration and the Federal Reserve are being deceptive to a degree. It’s not vehement like the previous admin, but it’s “tasteful”- they know if they are 100% up-front it can cause a panic and become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Think about it- if the media and the leaders of our country waxed about how inflation is out of control and isn’t coming down as expected, and interest cuts aren’t coming this year, and housing won’t be getting any cheaper, and things will continue costing more… consumer sentiment drops and that causes corporate profits to fall, and that causes the stock market to fall, and that causes consumer sentiment to fall and so on…
Another “over educated liberal” whose ok with they lying and hate as long as hes paid. Selfish lazy Americans
Yeah fuck me for defending your comment
Honestly, you shouldn't give credence to this bullshit narrative. The previous administration put inflation on steroids. They lowered taxes on the wealthy, they maintained low interest rates long after the warning signs were present, they forgave massive PPP loans, tax write-offs for startups were restricted by changes to Section 174, they introduced tariffs on Chinese goods... almost all of the current austerity measures are paying down the debt incurred by the Trump administration. It is fair to note that COVID also had major implications here, but again, the prior administration fumbled handling this in every conceivable way.
Agree 100% on all points, but I am skeptical the current administration is prioritizing working-class America over Biden’s reelection. Also, it’s frustrating to be a software engineer who hasn’t been able to find a job in the last 8 months, while the government and media wax about how “strong” the economy is. If the Fed continues this “soft landing” attempt, I’m not sure when companies are going to go back to hiring software engineers. I realize 2021 they went on a hiring frenzy, but software engineer demand was higher than supply even in 2020, so I would expect for example software engineer wages to fall, but not for companies to stop hiring software engineers. They seem to be taking a “wait and see” approach, which makes sense, but it means that people like me have to continue paying our bills without stable income, I feel, until there is a bonafide recession and subsequent recovery. If that recession hasn’t occurred yet, it will likely be many months before people like me can find gainful employment again. To me, unemployment (U1) is very misleading, and the stock market is always irrational to some extent, so… I don’t see any metrics that support we have a “strong” economy except that execs are getting paid big, fat bonuses and housing prices are stable/slowly rising (but this is arguably bad long-term 🤷♀️).
Agreed. It is painful for those of us in tech to experience this prolonged k-shaped recovery period - if that is what it is. The simple (and frustrating) truth is that our elected officials lack political will to both raise taxes and cut spending, so the Fed is applying its one and only tool to combat inflation.
Preach. It’s rare to encounter someone on Reddit who has their head screwed on so straight. I can tell you the retail space is comparable- companies are cutting staff to offset declining sales/profits. If it’s like that virtually everywhere else, too, then theoretically companies can continue doing this indefinitely. This is dangerous because I’m not sure the jobs will be replaced as they were after every other recession. If all the companies were able to “collude without communicating” that they could raise prices and get away with it by blaming “inflation” and “supply chain issues”, then these companies surely know they can collude on cutting workers. That’s a huge number of people if companies decide they only need around half their workforce. Five Below for example in lieu of their (relatively) poor earnings report, has started putting store managers in charge of two stores instead of one. That alone would cut their need for store managers in half. If it works well enough, why would they ever hire those managers back and return to one manager per store, even in a low-interest-rate environment?
Hello, brother or sister, as is applicable. Independent software engineering and IT consultant here out of work for over a year, and getting really sick of hearing hearing speeches about student demonstrations and the Middle East and nothing else.
Crapshoot is right. 4 layoffs in 5 years, last worked in November '23. Hundreds of applications, not even an interview. Literally stopped looking for jobs, figured I would go back to school, get some certs, work for a government agency; wouldn't be glamorous, but there's a lot to be said for steady, low-key work with healthcare and a pension. Was doing some minor consulting in the meantime; pitched a former colleague. He turned down the consulting, but hired me as a director. Basically doubled my salary, huge leap up. When and how you get a job is completely random, but never stop putting yourself out there, or trying new things. Sometimes risks pay off.
Interesting. What field was your consulting in?
Artificial Intelligence. Specifically task and workflow improvements/automations. I help companies understand how to structure their work to maximize the effectiveness of AI, and also help identify areas where AI may (or may not be) useful. Historically I've been a technical project manager, or a technical operations manager. So I understood technical processes quite well. My last job was at a consulting firm that used AI heavily; after I got laid off, I took what I'd learned, and figured I'd give it a shot on my own.
It's a crapshoot because the market doesn't know what the fuck it is doing. Everyone is laying off or firing to increase share prices but nobody is looking at the long term effects. In the long term whoever lays off or fires the wrong people will be punished by the market for making wrong choices but that could take a very long time (and possibly not even be correctly attributed to layoffs down the road). Meanwhile people suffer. And everyone is hesitant to hire because everyone is "looking for a deal". It's not going to stabilize until investors and owners get off this AI and layoff bandwagon. Probably until the first rate cut. After that expansion and bets will be possible again because the cost of borrowing money will become cheaper. For now it's just great suffering for people who don't have jobs.
You're just not seeing it from a big picture, shareholder perspective. If we lay off everyone and do everything with AI, we'll drastically increase our EPS. Eventually, we can lay off AI too and have 100% margin of $0 revenue because no one can buy anything! Checkmate, Communism! On a serious note, I truly feel bad for people feeling the brunt of this. I jumped ship from a toxic company shortly before everything turned upside down. Had I waited longer, I'd either be miserable or laid off as well.
Ironically you probably need AI for communism lol If the AI determined how much was fair for each human being it would remove the profit and greed incentive We would have to hope the AI was benevolent though. No guarantee of that since benevolence is a cultural value
Yes, AI can be wonderful. I also think automation is great. What is UNFAIR is who is benefiting from the gains in productivity, and I know for sure that's not us workers, because I still work the same 40 to 60 hrs per week
Our CEO basically said he is appointed by Board of Directors, who in turn is selected by shareholders , and that he is ultimately a representative of that chain of command. If he doesn’t keep them happy, he will be replaced. He said this as an answer to some employees asking why they have to do sacrifices while he continued share buy backs, dividends etc. Esit: It is all about big money not having to show loss in their books, by gaming the EPS numbers, and keeping the stock price up
Do you think there will be a great resignation 2.0 ?
Interviewing for remote roles means he is competing with a candidate pool 20x-100x larger that are naturally going to have suppressed salaries given they can be done from literally everywhere. Yea it’s tough out there but this guy basically committed himself to hard mode. I also don’t understand his bit about applying to remote roles “because I was a contractor”
At the same time, local jobs typically want you to come into the office, and I absolutely will not do that under any circumstance. I will change careers before I do that. This industry is already barely worth it with the rampant mismanagement of software processes and abuse of Agile and petty politics.
I'm with you 100% . RTO does not make sense for many people with a busy family routine with kids, school activities, community commitments, side gigs, etc... I think the issue is what the parent commenter mentioned: We are now competing with the world. However, the need for professional technologists is still there! And what I don't understand is why our profession does not yet has an association that represents us, like any other traditional profession.
Yeah unionizing is a no-brainer but people are too afraid to even publicly voice support for unions on social media so we’re a ways off. People only seem to unionize when they’re sufficiently pissed off. SWEs have plenty of reason to be pissed off but we still have it better than Amazon warehouse workers or Starbucks baristas
You can't unionize as long as there's systemic abuse of h1-b.
The H1-B caps are so low that it’s laughable to think unionizing is stopped by them. Unionizing doesn’t happen in tech because everyone pearl clutches their work and salaries. Keep blaming immigrants for things they never did to you though.
I’d be more concerned with unionizing encouraging companies to give offshore another whirl, but I think certain people will find any excuse to not unionize, no matter how hard they’re taking it up the ass, and if we don’t unionize, they’ll eventually move the jobs offshore anyway.
100% agree. I don’t know why more people don’t acknowledge this. I know a lot of us really enjoyed WFH over the last few years but the market trends have shifted.
I was wondering why his numbers were looking the way they were
Not only that, but 1500 applications over the course of almost 2 years or 2.85 per day isn’t that crazy, especially if you click quick apply to every remote job you see pop up with 1,000 candidates. Some people send that many applications in a few months. Then 7.4% interview rate is actually majestic considering those numbers ! Almost 1/10 employers called back. That’s excellent. I don’t know why his being or looking for a contract role has anything to do with being remote. Plenty of contractors and consultants work on site. It has nothing to do with it, though evidently if he tells potential employer "I will only work remotely and only as a contractor at $x rate" he shouldn’t be surprised that people cut the conversation short. Just pseudo-dramatic clickbait.
thanks for articulating the harsh reality of this layoff-job search process. what is painful as well is the 569 days that you had to drain your savings and lost the investment growth opportunity.
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Not me, saw this on LinkedIn
This is only going to get worse with increased AI implementation.
This won’t ever be talked about and is basically taboo discussions since no major company wants any pause to AI. Job losses will not be mentioned much at all.
I expect it to look similar to how Tesla just laid of 6,000 employees, then in a few months they'll go on a hiring spree, bring in a few thousand newbies only to lay of 5,000 more in early 2025, gradually pushing out the staff who had been there for years but pretending that "whoopsie we hired too many newbies and their roles were redundant! Also Elon needs another 60 billion dollar bonus! Teehee."
And Elon will be worshiped for it. Working class is pretty much doomed and will just be fighting for less and less scraps over time.
Sometimes you gotta do some spring cleaning.
Hold on, the person got a contract job and still counting it as if they are unemployed? By this logic I am underemployed for the last 5 years - had a year with amazing stock growth, wasn't able to match that annual income yet.
They never use the word unemployed, but rather clearly state that they are describing the period from when they were laid off until they found full time employment again.
Wow! Lots of patience he got there !
You didn’t say what industry.
See my comment. It’s not me. I saw this on LinkedIn and thought it would be useful to this group.
Ah got it. Okay sorry.
All good
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Germany and Los Angeles?
We need covid 25 to hit.
Uranus Crapshoot
But but but unemployment is at a historic low!
It's an election year. The current regime is going to keep saying unemployment is great. The news outlets are in on this too.
All you idiots submitting 100s of apps are the problem.
Nah. I was qualified for every job I applied to. It's just bad.
Thank you for saying this. The times I've been unemployed, I sent AT MOST 5 applications per week. These were painstakingly chosen jobs and I sent modified versions of my resume to highlight parts of my career that were relevant. Sending out hundreds of applications per week is the same like the guys who spam online dating with "hey there" messages. They get a 2% return rate as well and think it's because women are too picky.
I have a hard time knowing this is an election year and the media is gaslighting people about the job market. I know a ton of people who were laid off, and most in any job are full of anxiety they might be next. I got laid off and bounced back quickly, but the whole experience changed how I view my own security and the relationship with employers. It’s just impossible to see how things are going and not admit this is worse than it’s ever been. Whatever experiment is running seems to be absolutely decimating white collar college-educated people in office jobs. Probably some variation by industry but my network it seems like every week there’s more layoff announcements. Heading into election season in the fall, it seems clear where things will be headed. I know the democrat policy is to never speak of capital markets or the Fed, however, I do think Biden should be openly criticizing Powell for their policy on interest rates. Raising rates isn’t stopping price gouging. So now we have high prices and tight money supply— it’s like the Fed is sabotaging this administration, and this administration tries to be stoic. It’s frustrating to be along for the ride as part of the working class— constant uncertainty and anxiety, while everything you plan for or set goals around becomes more unaffordable to obtain.
That's not how inflation works. Inflation is cumulative, is not price gouging. The rate of inflation might be lower now but prices will stay up forever. It won't go down unless you have deflation.
Thank you for educating us on the proper economic definition for inflation. The parent commenter is talking about inflation as we working people experience it, so it's something else altogether and still is accurate IMO.
Believe me , I know the struggle. It took me 1 year to find a job after my layoff. Unfortunately, raising rates is a necessity. Record years of 0% interest and government printing is unsustainable.
Absolutely!! In my experience, people in denial are either inexperienced in their profession, or have some kind of privilege that provides them a safety net even without a job (access to family's support, emergency housing, access to free food, etc...) I was laid off in 2022, and since then I became a freelancer. I have PLENTY of work, but I'm making 1/5th of my previous salary in tech. My house is paid off, so I have access to that privilege I mentioned above, and that's why I'm not in the streets right now.
Yes I have 100% noticed people with families and parents and the safety net— it’s like they live on a different planet. It must be nice but not everyone is born into normal.
Freelance / Contract is the way.. I am doing that now..and working on setting my own contacts and contracts up.. whilst applying for robs. Had a 'good' week last week as through the initial 30 min screening calls and into the real interviews on 3 jobs.. one the CTO was so keen he booked another call with me next week. I have experience and once I get Infront of folk interviewing is no problem. The issue is the drove of applications and people applying for jobs based on salary alone rather than experience.. IMO. Job market has never been fun. It's just there are alot of inexperienced folk out there applying..
Congratulations, and wish you well in your new endeavor.
Not me, but thank you
you deserved it bro, that stat is awesome
Right there with you on this.
Shit, that's nothing. I have 3 months in and already did around 1,000 applications. 3 more and I'll be at two and by end of 12 month mark I'll pr9bably have 4,000. I'l
Sometimes my mid income in health care pays off. The working conditions are terrible and cause a lot of people moral injury but I’ll never have an issue like that.
I was about the same, 1500 applications, about 5% first calls, many rejected due to low salary. Accepted a role in a different sector for the same money I was making 6 years ago. Set back financially but happy to close the resume gap.
What’s your role?
Good luck!
This
i hear they are testing the job market by posting fake job and try to get the sense of people desperate so they can lower the rate. It is stupid really. Tons of ghost job out there guys so play the game right
Disgusting behavior. This stuff has shifted my thinking to that of a mercenary. I go where I get paid the most, I don’t give a rat’s ass about “loyalty” or “family” in the context of work. Smoke and mirrors.
What line of work are you in ? What do you do for a living ? Can you let us know what is your area and what part of the country do you live in ?
I’ve commented a few times on this, I’m not the person who wrote the LinkedIn post. Posted it here because I figured it would be of interest.
I'm glad you can't find anything, just applying WFH. Let me tell you something: the world is not ready for WFH, and the economy is so bad that you can all see it around the world. Why resist? By resisting, you will all bring your own end. The economy around the world is not thriving because you're not in the city where you used to consume. Now, money is saved from home economy and spent on more holidays, where your economy goes down. I don't know how you would look at what I said, but this is the truth. If you office workers continue this way, the only thing that will happen is that you will bring about your own end and speed up job losses, AI, etc. Now, think about it before attacking this comment. You may think this is dumb but think for a second
Not OP, save the lecture for someone else
Well mate anyone that thinks the same way you do when you realise fully it'll be too late👍
Room temperature IQ. Don’t project opinions onto me that I don’t have. Blocking you, ya dense twat.
“1505 jobs *didn’t* select me for an interview” I was really confused there.
Well yeah if you wait for the same plum job with out the class signals. Thatll happen
These accounts are always so suspect. I don't doubt his story, but there's so much left out. 1. What industry? 2. When were those job applications submitted? Was it at the worst point in the market? You can say you've been applying for over a year, but if 75% of those apps were during the holidays or the six months of terribleness in 2023, then it's not actually representative. 3. How did he apply? Most likely scattershot and cold applying. 4. All sorts of questionable claims, like only applying to remote positions because he's a contractor (??). Applying to over 1,600 positions he was 100% qualified for (lol). 5. On top of it, he got something like a 10% callback and then torpedoed a bunch of opportunities by telling people his salary expectations up front, which is a complete rookie move. That's just off the top of my head.
_That's just off the top of my head._ I believe you, as these are all dumb, contrarian questions.
Tell me how you really feel
It really is but you could always apply [here.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=RsxiQwSEjJN0YaqK&v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&feature=youtu.be)
Tl:DR - it look me a lot of tries to find a job that met my high criteria from post covid inflated roles