I'll start with my back-of-the-napkin summary of the 2023 - 2024 (so far) comparison stats below:<p>- There are 29.5% more tech job openings today than the low in March '23 (and the positive trend has been largely steady)<p>- The YoY number of average daily tech layoffs has declined by roughly 20%<p>The following data was gathered from the two most comprehensive sources out there: TrueUp.io and Layoffs.fyi.<p>Note: the difference in total numbers is due to TrueUp's much larger dataset (it tracks more startups & non-US markets). They both still show a nice improvement, e.g. the decline in average daily layoffs is around 24% on TrueUp and 14% on Layoffs.fyi.<p>TrueUp.io<p>- There are approximately 211K open tech jobs today; there were 165K last March. That said, the peak was 478K in April '22.<p>- In 2023, there were approximately 429K people laid off by 2K tech companies (an average of 1,175 people/day)<p>- So far this year, there have been approximately 117K people laid off by 539 tech companies (an average of 894 people/day)<p>Layoffs.fyi<p>- In 2023, there were approximately 263K people laid off by 1,200 tech companies (an average of 721 people/day)<p>- So far this year, there have been approximately 81K people laid off by 287 tech companies (an average of 619 people/day)<p>If it doesn't feel like it's improving, please hang in there. No market moves in a straight line...but at least the bumpy ride appears to be on the right track!
I do a lot of coffee chats with new grads, recruiters, job seekers<p>What I find is that general development is seen as less desirable compared to the boom of 2021. Due to AI, lots of supply on the market, outsourcing, etc. It's just seen as a commodity.<p>People recognize they want to specialize into more technical areas. Of course there's AI/ML. But I also see this in high-performance ops, native programming (ie Rust, etc), search/recommendations/RAG, and the like.<p>So like past recessions, the old jobs don't entirely "come back". But rather a set of jobs stays commodotized, while new areas of the economy are forged/specialized.<p>Another pattern is hiring only senior+ to focus more on quick wins rather than building out a team for long-term success. It's really hard to be a junior right now. I hope that changes as teams recognize they need to focus not on near-term gains, but building sustainable teams into the future.
I gave up a while ago and started on the path to becoming a doctor. I'm pretty happy about it except for the 10 years until I make what I used to part.
This is good news. I found a new job in early 2024 and it was brutal, it took about 6 months of looking and interviews with ~20 companies, which is a lot considering my prior offer-to-interview ratio was pretty close to 1.000. I still ended up taking a ~40% pay cut and took a job using tech I don't know well.
I wonder if this layoff statistics also consider the contractors whose contract wasn’t extended . The company I work for didn’t do any layoffs in theory but simply stopped extending expiring contracts. And let me tell you, there were a lot of contractors.
I don't know if TrueUp incorporates this data, but <a href="https://data.indeed.com/" rel="nofollow">https://data.indeed.com/</a> shows the number of software dev postings in the US has started to plateau at a level roughly matching the early-COVID crash (Spring 2020), while in central Europe (Germany and France) it's also around that level (bit higher for France) but still rapidly declining with no end in sight.