Charted: The Decline of U.S. Software Developer Jobs(visualcapitalist.com) |
Charted: The Decline of U.S. Software Developer Jobs(visualcapitalist.com) |
- I go to the supermarket: the screen calling the next customer at the register and running Windows 11 (sic) crash all the time, so chaos.
- I can't make a bank transfer online because the transfer system is unavailable
- I walk in my street: the lights are turned on during the day and turned off at night (and I usually don't even notice the government related stuff anymore, it is hopeless)
I see computer related things in need of a serious fix everywhere, all the time. Most of those are "local" systems. But those companies won't recruit and empower anybody to fix it, because everybody got used to things not working.
In the meanwhile, engineers are told there is no more jobs for them "because of AI". But it seems the AI they were sold can't figure out lights need to be turned on at night and not during the day...
Software Developers (and I am one) are too expensive for most companies. This caused a brain drain into "Big Tech" which while a valuable bubble of technologists, is only a niche in the greater community.
If software wages come down, more local, non-tech, smaller scale companies will be able to afford to have in house developers, and the world needs way more bespoke software to truly capitalize on the power of small software.
I would rather see software developers be on par with your local machinist or trade specialist rather than a tool to upper-echelon companies in big tech.
The reason why these systems are not fixed is that it does not make sense to hire the engineers to fix them, the customers lack the money to afford the improvements.
Are good programmers the ones that fix everything and put themselves out of work or the ones that can drag things out to keep themselves employed long enough to jump to another company?
Stretch the graph to 1995 and then we can talk.
Like are they straight searching “software developer” on indeed?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE
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It’s rough out there, I see former coworkers laid off last year and the year before still struggling to find work
Charted: The Rise of U.S. Software Developer Jobs up to a new peak
Charted: The Decline of U.S. Software Developer Jobs from this peak
The problem is that there will be less jobs and it won't recover and nothing to replace those lost jobs. Not even "UBI", which is unsustainable at a larger scale and really doesn't work at all.
Remember when the whole industry also was screaming about Jevon's paradox? Well, as AI gets more efficient, it benefits the LLM providers (not you) and creates more job-destroying AI (not more jobs). It enriches AI use-cases for companies that own LLMs or the systems that run them to keep you out of a job.
Even if 1 job is available, a growing list of candidates per job to compete and will just continue to increase.
You see, I hope you realized that the bullsh*t in AI, over-valuations and the the rapid race to zero are all factors that have not only caused this decline in SWE jobs, but will also cause a crash like it's the year 2000 + another AI winter.
Right now we are in late 1999 and just need a new surprise to reset the industry. Likely to happen before 2030.
So I'd prepare for that and you are 5 years early to do so before the "intelligence age" advances far into 2030, which is the dealine. [0]
[0] https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-repo...
For those looking to pester me with sealioning & strawmen arguments, I'm not interested. This is unsustainable and will come crashing down. If you have a retort locked & loaded, save it for 5-10 years & come back, we can discuss if this was another Silicon Valley snake oil frenzy or the real deal once every company overleveraged on AI has crashed & the rubble pile has stopped smoking.
...but the graph is the same, isn't it? Did they just change the Y-axis without doing the math to get percent change?
I will tell my kids my mistakes and recommend that they don't "put all their skill points into math/engineering/etc" in college.
https://www.onlycfo.io/p/new-tax-rule-is-terrible-for-softwa...
TLDR: software jobs were tax free in the US until 2022, when congress who widely promised and were expected to repeal a Trump tax raise ... didn't. Now software engineers in the US are expensive for US companies and software engineers outside the US are 3x more expensive.
This was financial engineering by Trump. Not by him personally of course, but by GOP "strategists" that lowered taxes on the extremely wealthy.
Extending it back to 1995 or so like the first comment suggested would give us a few more upsets in the market to see more easily if this effect actually exists in this data. That said, their source is https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE so that data probably doesn't exist.
However, if you mean they shouldn't choose engineering as a major: I don't regret my CS degree at all, even though i hated it at the time. The logic and scientific rigor helps me in the most practical things in every day to day things at work by being consciously analytic.
That's not the government's fault (besides lockdown), it's because tech workers were way overpaid (and hence all the layoffs and salary deflation now).
- allowing corporations to “own” homes.
- allowing individuals to personally own more than 1 home, EVEN if those other homes were vacant for 95% of the year. (this encourages the rich to “invest” in 2nd homes, or make them AirBnb’s)
- allowing foreign buyers at all (this encourages wasteful ultra-luxury real estate in places like manhattan)
- not building _enough_ housing, especially starter homes.
- corporations and billionaires taking a larger piece of the pie, which has cause stagnating income growth (except for a minor bump post-covid) for decades.
i could go on. Most of this problem was “manufactured” by the US govt via greedy (or in some case shortsighted) laws and policies. In other words, there are almost no strict policies on housing in the US. It’s a free for all, and the rich win. How surprising.
For context i own a home so im not personally affected. But i’m bitter because the people “at the top” in the US seem to hate everyone else. It’s an “i got mine attitude”. Shameful.