logoalt Hacker News

maxericksontoday at 12:03 PM1 replyview on HN

Software productivity doubling would be a huge boon for the economy, not a drag.

Of course it's very disruptive for people that lose their jobs, but many of them will get similar new jobs, and the overall impact is higher output.


Replies

FrancisMoodietoday at 12:44 PM

If all companies fire 50% of their engineers, how will anybody find similar new jobs? In an ideal world software productivity doubling WOULD be a huge boon for the economy IF companies used the increased productivity of their engineers as a way to manage tech debt, R&D and other issues that were put in the backlog because historically there were no resources for this. In reality all companies look at increased productivity as a source for layoffs which does not translate in higher output but the same output done by less people. Which is a net negative because now you have 50% of all engineers without a job and no discernible increase in quality of deliverables.

show 4 replies