alt Hacker NewsIs America's jobs market nearing a cliff?
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I think there's something quite interesting (well to me anyway) where if you go by the internet, there is this bloodbath (slight exaggeration perhaps but feels like that) in jobs out in the US, UK, Aus and major European countries (the volume of anecdotes & complaints would suggest a significant downturn in employment) but out in the official data, and less so but still true in the real world, things are still bobbing along. Not great guns but still ok. The interesting thing is how much is internet chatter a leading signal for this thing now than in previous cycles?
Outside of the unique circumstances of covid, we've never had, to my knowledge, a notable downturn when social media, and all the chatter it generates, has been so prominent or mass engaged. How much of it is just internet noise vs canary in the coal mine stuff. Who knows? But curious to find out in coming months/year
From my experience, it's grim at the moment for software developer jobs. I got laid off in August and it's been rough. I'm in my early 30s so I can't compare it to 2008, but I've been laid off before and I've never seen it this bad.
My pet theory is that we are experiencing stagflation, but only people >70 years old have ever really experienced it before, so most people are just scratching their heads wondering how it’s possible that stocks keep going up (inflation) while jobs are disappearing (stagnation). I am most definitely not an economist, nor am I qualified to play one on tv.
Not sure if it's been missed or I'm an anomaly. But as a senior level software engineer who graduated in the 10s, with a wealth of experience, I too (like the juniors who get reported on) am struggling to get a new job. Either I'm just not as good as I think I am, or the barrier is ridiculously high for the next type of job I'm trying to achieve (high paying, product focused developer).
Ftfa (the part I could read) “ growth is buoyed by an exuberant stockmarket and artificial-intelligence investment, while ordinary Americans languish”
Black Friday sales set records and it not even cyber Monday. If Americans are languishing then shouldn’t holiday spending be down?
I don’t know, I’m hiring and the candidates so far have not been impressive.
Maybe that is restricted to my area / region but I got one am confused.
We’re hiring software engineers, full stack (frontend leaning). Email me at gyani at tabtabtab dot ai if you are in London and looking for onsite roles.
The author must have written the headline as a legitimate question to the audience because they certainly did not make much effort to answer it in the article.
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Also, shocking to see no mention of the investment thesis, let alone critique of it.
It seems we are nearing the bottom of the business cycle. I lived through 2001 and 2008. Both were worse than now. It will get better.
I hope so – how else am I going to find a great cofounder?!
Mostly kidding.
No, because the only thing keeping the fed from lowering interest rates and juicing real estate and everything else is a strong labor market.
The Economist peddling doom n gloom IN THIS ECONOMY?
It’s interesting bc I still see mid level (7 yoe) developers getting jobs with no issues. Lots of dispersion of difficulty depending on speciality as well
There is still half an hour until the tank, plenty of time to sell..
Its a little strange for the article to not mention how much of the "stock growth" and GDP growth is mostly due to unsustainable, large investments in Data centers. Its not clear if that will continue into 2026, and what will happen when it stops.
My personal prediction is that, barring some kind of insurrection/revolution, Congress will flip in 2026 and force POTUS to back down on tariff nonsense, which will finally un-paralyze businesses which will resume capital investments and hiring. 2026 itself might be really rough though, if the AI bubble pops.
This market is sick. =(
"We seem to have no clue, but we can get an article out of it anyway"--the Economist.
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996 - it's a global marketplace of talent and very few in America are willing to work 996. If you are, you either are the founder type or young and unshackled.
Well as a single datum:
After I got laid off in late 2023 I had a devil of a time finding work (despite having AI experience) to the point my unemployment ran out -
And I was 20 years as a dev and tech lead and full stack, (never had trouble finding work) including stints as a leading EM and CTO, I’ve been an industry award winning innovation lead,a digital studio director, switching tech stacks and cloud certs all my career..mentoring juniors and doing podcasts and writing white papers etc, but peanuts - nothing
Getting ghosted by 25 year olds in interviews and doing rounds and rounds and leetcode and all that but no success- for example I had a 7 round interview with NBCUniversal in 2023 and then got ghosted (I probably doged a bullet since they had subsequent layoffs)
a 12 month stint with nothing - we lost our savings as my wife got laid off too
Since then I pivoted to AI and Gen AI startups- joining incubators and finally got some work or at least cofounded some AI startups- now money is tight and I dont have health insurance but at least I have a job… it sucks as a over 45 year old as I have so much experience but no one cares.. still dont have much grey hair so I can pass for 40 to get noticed
No one stable is hiring or your resume just goes to a dead letter queue or is lost in ether or lost amid all the ai generated resumes out there - young ML and PHds and people under 40 seem to be getting work in Gen AI but thats about it
networking is the only game left and most good recruiters I know got laid off too
At least I’ve built up production experience in agents and context engineering RL, pytorch, langchain/LangGraph, RAG, KGa, etc python, BAML, LLM and LLMops to add to my years of full stack work