In a very real sense these are still ripples from the death of Franz Ferdinand.

Also, whether Covid is to blame or not, all these layoffs (not just the Meta one) contradict some of the most common rationalizations I've seen for how AI won't destroy the labor market but rather expand it.

If there really is all this latent untapped need to drive a Jevron's effect software explosion that will keep developers employable, why would so many profitable companies be laying off so many workers into the transition?

Many companies really got bloated during COVID. From what I can see online, Meta doubled their number of employees between 2019 and 2022. How long does it take to correct from that amount of hiring?

I mean hell we are still feeling the impacts of 2008 crash and monetary policy.

It takes time to correct 10 years of ZIRP, plus COVID overhiring that doubled the headcount of those 10 years in just 2-3.

The jig was up when social media like Reddit and tiktok during the pandemic was full of posts with big tech workers gloating about getting hired for six figure salaries to sleep in and play video games at home while putting in 2 hours of work a week, obvious to anyone with two neurons to rub together that it was a too-good-to-be-true unsustainable bubble that's gonna pop and trigger a brutal reset on the job market.

Further reinforced with Elon firing 80% of Twitter and the website didn't stop working, reminding big tech CEOs that they can also start looking into trimming the overhiring fat in their back yard, with no operational loss.

Reinforce that with wall street rewarding mass layoff with share price going up, contrary to the pandemic rewards of shares going up with over hiring, and you have the perfect storm.

AI and the idea of it replacing jobs, has nothing to dow with this, it's just 10 years of ZIRP reawarding every unprofitable bullsit SaaS start-up, and 10 years of "just learn to code bro" where every shoeshine boy became a coder so now tech companies hiring are spoiled for choice.

Edit: Oh I forgot, add to that the increased of offshoring to places with cheaper labor thanks to the normalisation of remote work making it an even perfecter(is that a word?) storm on why an average programmer's labor has way less value.