I’ve noticed that there are some interesting bubbles around this fact as well. Anyone that hasn’t been laid off yet is completely, blissfully ignorant to the forest burning down outside their walls.
I have been fortunate enough to hold two positions through this downturn after initially being cut. The tone on the inside of these organizations is absolutely wild - nothing against them because they can’t know, but it’s like a lot of them are in some kind of vault from Fallout where they don’t realize people are being eaten a few hundred paces away.
It is that bad, but one group still has absolutely no idea when it comes to being able to empathize with it. And that’s a really big problem when it comes to turning it around.
I've heard similar stories a few times already, basically every time the economy goes bad. E.g. in 2008 or after the dotcom crash, you either had a job and nothing bad happened, or you lost a job and couldn't get hired. On local levels it also happens when a big factory closes and whole small cities tumble into poverty.
I saw a story around 2008 about fired bankers. They had trouble to buy food with their food stamps because they came to the shop with their expensive cars. It turns out they lost the house, were living in the car, and there was a market glut of expensive cars from all these other fired ex-rich people so even if they wanted they could not sell for a decent price. Besides, things had changed so fast under their feet, they didn't have time to sell the car yet.
If you remember the "belt tightening of the '80's" under Reagan, who couldn't understand financial math either, it takes thousands of mindless layoffs, "across the board" in order to add up to the millions that are destined to be disenfranchised, a large number of whom will drop completely from the statistics forevermore.
Remember this is when GDP was invented, then for previous years when there was only GNP, those were converted to GDP values very slyly in a way to "not freak people out" about how much worse it was than before.
Even Chevron is bound to layoff about 8,000 according to recent announcements, of course they can afford to take their time like few non-oil companies can, but it'll all be over for these dedicated employees of theirs before the end of 2026.
Same kind of bubbles there were back then, once millions have been set back generations, everyone else will largely think there are no lingering problems because they actually have jobs. There is some air of success from those who did luck out in the numbers game, because of the atmosphere where people know it's harder to get or keep a career going. So they highly value the job they have more than ever, but really can't afford very much sympathy for so many millions that can not be saved.
There are also many other places un and underemployed people show up, such as income quintiles, tax return statistics, and eventually, revenue and net income in publicly listed business’ financials.
I'm told that the French don't have to put up with this crap because they are much more willing to go on strike, even after securing a cushy, high-paying job. I think it must be a herd immunity thing; ever since being unceremoniously fired from my first real job in my 20s, my attitude has been that I will be a conscientious worker to the utmost, up until the point that my employer deigns to screw me. At that point, my attitude becomes, "Fire me."
Mostly, they do not.
The times they did, their hard-nosed facade softened considerably when they realized that I was willing not only to drop everything immediately and leave them high-and-dry, but also to come after them for anything they might owe me. If more were willing to say no to being exploited, it probably wouldn't even get that far. People can make due, but you don't have a company if you don't have your employees. Messing with the "disposable" ones should immediately get even the most secure on the picket line, but it doesn't seem to (unless you're an actor or writer).
I am too young to have lived through it and understand my observation is likely not novel, but it is new to me. I am a millennial born in the 90s, which means I didn’t really practically absorb any dotcom fallout either. Even 2008 was an insignificant blip to me - I'm outside the US as well.
This is why I built tangerine feed for remote roles. It turns out there are tons of remote roles and you can get an edge by applying first. It has unfortunately come down to a numbers game with low odds.
I'm on both sides of this right now, hiring senior engineers for companies I consult for, while considering getting back to full time technical focus in a staff/principal role.
When I'm hiring, I'm having to trudge through a TON of irrelevant resumes, and some super weird interviews with folks lying about their location or clearly relying on LLMs for answers to broad questions experienced folks with very general software knowledge should be able to talk about easily.
For getting hired, my resume acceptance rate was abysmal when I usually do pretty well, but when I actually get to talk to folks I can sense relief that I am who I say I am and have real experience. Offers are coming in at a range similar to 2021.
It's a very noisy atmosphere at the moment. I think folks experiencing the anxiety I felt at the start of my search should rest assured that there are real jobs for people who do real work. AI definitely isn't taking them. Getting face to face with the person who needs your skills is hard these days, but going through your network helps a lot and if that fails, persistence still works. If you need to hire, I've found going through my network to circumvent the applicant spam very effective for that side as well.
We're a community, and we can do a lot of good for ourselves and each other by connecting directly when our usual channels for placement are so unreliable these days.
A market correction is definitely taking place and jobs like the one in the post that are fully remote are highly coveted so it’s not so surprising. There’s still lots of places for tech to make a meaningful impact but acceptable risk tolerance is much stricter due to tax law shifts and VC funding strictness due to higher interest rates.
I would say that the job market has been tough for the last 6~9 months at least, you had the major tech layoffs occurring about a year ago and auto manufacturing was being impacted in October.
This is part of the reason people were upset with the message that the economy was doing fine during the election.
An insane argument of the day: it's the productivity problem. The worker productivity is just so high nowadays, that it's impossible to have more than 70% of working population meaningfully employed. We need to start to employ people to dig holes and then fill them back because there is no other reasonable way to justify their sustenance. Sadly, that's precisely what's DOGE is against.
Indeed! We are inventing illogical concepts like Planned Obsolescence, Guerilla Marketing and Over-Consumerism just in order to sustain a failed system that push people into poverty, even when there are enough goods and services produced for everyone already.
> The worker productivity is just so high nowadays, that it's impossible to have more than 70% of working population meaningfully employed
What!? There’s probably some companies in tech where people are shuffling papers but there is a massive mismatch in jobs and skills. There is a labour shortage in many regions and skilled trades can make a killing.
Are we living in a world where while only 70% of the working population is employed everyone's needs and material desires are met? If yes then the unemployed have no need to justify their sustenance. If no then there is more meaningful work to be done.
Big difference between no one needs anything done, and no one needs what I do done.
They, or rather Elon anyway, are also super pro-natalist. So not only are they not really interested in dealing with the growing disconnect between increasing per-capita productivity and the inability of the average citizen laborer to share in the wealth of that increased productivity, they are also advocating for significant population growth too. Number must always go UP!
Everyone go have 12 kids please. Ya'll got billions in the bank to take care of them in the face of a likely double whammy of increased inflation and decreased job prospects, right?
When I post SWE roles, I get hundreds of applicants from people outside the US who pretend to already be in the US, by putting SF in their LinkedIn. I also get a ton of people who lie about needing work authorization.
I can confirm it also goes the other way. Posted a remote job where we needed applicant to be only one or two time zones away from UTC and 80% of the 500+ applicants in the first 24 hours were from the US. I guess it makes sense as the cost for ignoring the clear notice in the job description regarding location is borne by the hiring side, but very annoying.
Or they just said they were in the US? Resume spammers rarely read the job advert well enough to change tactics. They probably still weren’t close to UTC.
I experienced the same in my previous job. And it makes me wonder: what do those applicants hope to get out of this ruse? It's not like hiring managers will think "oh, we've gotten this far into the process, we might as well arrange a lengthy and expensive visa process for them"
There was a linkedin post floating around a few weeks ago that went in the other direction - a hiring manager who posted "remote" jobs, go the applicant hired, and then did a rug pull letting them know that it wasn't actually remote after all, they were required to come into the office. The hiring manager proudly bragged that most of the applicants just went along with it anyway and the comments were pointing out that it didn't seem like they'd have much choice at that point since they'd have already quit their other jobs.
> It's not like hiring managers will think "oh, we've gotten this far into the process, we might as well arrange a lengthy and expensive visa process for them"
That's exactly the advice that hiring managers themselves gave 10 years ago.
> oh, we've gotten this far into the process, we might as well arrange a lengthy and expensive visa process for them
What about "oh, we've gotten this far, maybe we can work it out by having them work remotely from their country for a cheaper compensation than what we would have had to pay locally"?
From the applicant's point of view it costs very little to try this out.
Yeah makes sense that you would get a lot of applications when you are offering the job to billions of people instead of a couple of million at most in a large city.
Readit News
I have been fortunate enough to hold two positions through this downturn after initially being cut. The tone on the inside of these organizations is absolutely wild - nothing against them because they can’t know, but it’s like a lot of them are in some kind of vault from Fallout where they don’t realize people are being eaten a few hundred paces away.
It is that bad, but one group still has absolutely no idea when it comes to being able to empathize with it. And that’s a really big problem when it comes to turning it around.
I saw a story around 2008 about fired bankers. They had trouble to buy food with their food stamps because they came to the shop with their expensive cars. It turns out they lost the house, were living in the car, and there was a market glut of expensive cars from all these other fired ex-rich people so even if they wanted they could not sell for a decent price. Besides, things had changed so fast under their feet, they didn't have time to sell the car yet.
Remember this is when GDP was invented, then for previous years when there was only GNP, those were converted to GDP values very slyly in a way to "not freak people out" about how much worse it was than before.
Even Chevron is bound to layoff about 8,000 according to recent announcements, of course they can afford to take their time like few non-oil companies can, but it'll all be over for these dedicated employees of theirs before the end of 2026.
Same kind of bubbles there were back then, once millions have been set back generations, everyone else will largely think there are no lingering problems because they actually have jobs. There is some air of success from those who did luck out in the numbers game, because of the atmosphere where people know it's harder to get or keep a career going. So they highly value the job they have more than ever, but really can't afford very much sympathy for so many millions that can not be saved.
U-6 unemployment and labor force participation rates capture everyone.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
There are also many other places un and underemployed people show up, such as income quintiles, tax return statistics, and eventually, revenue and net income in publicly listed business’ financials.
Mostly, they do not.
The times they did, their hard-nosed facade softened considerably when they realized that I was willing not only to drop everything immediately and leave them high-and-dry, but also to come after them for anything they might owe me. If more were willing to say no to being exploited, it probably wouldn't even get that far. People can make due, but you don't have a company if you don't have your employees. Messing with the "disposable" ones should immediately get even the most secure on the picket line, but it doesn't seem to (unless you're an actor or writer).
Granted, it was a PR blunder to call my own audience members ignorant..
To your point: as organizers we can viscerally confirm it's intractable to generate mass awareness. Corpos really got us all siloed.
[0] https://handmadecities.com/news/hms-2024-my-honest-take/
https://tangerinefeed.net
Still working on filtering etc, pardon the work in progress.
When I'm hiring, I'm having to trudge through a TON of irrelevant resumes, and some super weird interviews with folks lying about their location or clearly relying on LLMs for answers to broad questions experienced folks with very general software knowledge should be able to talk about easily.
For getting hired, my resume acceptance rate was abysmal when I usually do pretty well, but when I actually get to talk to folks I can sense relief that I am who I say I am and have real experience. Offers are coming in at a range similar to 2021.
It's a very noisy atmosphere at the moment. I think folks experiencing the anxiety I felt at the start of my search should rest assured that there are real jobs for people who do real work. AI definitely isn't taking them. Getting face to face with the person who needs your skills is hard these days, but going through your network helps a lot and if that fails, persistence still works. If you need to hire, I've found going through my network to circumvent the applicant spam very effective for that side as well.
We're a community, and we can do a lot of good for ourselves and each other by connecting directly when our usual channels for placement are so unreliable these days.
This is part of the reason people were upset with the message that the economy was doing fine during the election.
Not everyone is in a world region where they can walk out of the door and there is a bunch of companies queueing up to take them in.
What!? There’s probably some companies in tech where people are shuffling papers but there is a massive mismatch in jobs and skills. There is a labour shortage in many regions and skilled trades can make a killing.
Big difference between no one needs anything done, and no one needs what I do done.
They, or rather Elon anyway, are also super pro-natalist. So not only are they not really interested in dealing with the growing disconnect between increasing per-capita productivity and the inability of the average citizen laborer to share in the wealth of that increased productivity, they are also advocating for significant population growth too. Number must always go UP!
Everyone go have 12 kids please. Ya'll got billions in the bank to take care of them in the face of a likely double whammy of increased inflation and decreased job prospects, right?
Although the salaries at which the candidates are getting closed is not decreasing / almost the same.
There was a linkedin post floating around a few weeks ago that went in the other direction - a hiring manager who posted "remote" jobs, go the applicant hired, and then did a rug pull letting them know that it wasn't actually remote after all, they were required to come into the office. The hiring manager proudly bragged that most of the applicants just went along with it anyway and the comments were pointing out that it didn't seem like they'd have much choice at that point since they'd have already quit their other jobs.
That's exactly the advice that hiring managers themselves gave 10 years ago.
What about "oh, we've gotten this far, maybe we can work it out by having them work remotely from their country for a cheaper compensation than what we would have had to pay locally"?
From the applicant's point of view it costs very little to try this out.