Could it actually be that the United States is in a plain old recession?
I know the stock markets are higher than ever due to AI investment. But the real economy may not be in a great shape hence the layoffs.
While the cause may be not be AI, but instead policy, e.g. tariffs. But also multiple conflicts ( Ukraine , Iran, Lebanon), leading higher oil , gas, critical raw material prices. China heavy exporting economy but not having domestic demand to fuel growth and bilateral trade with other countries.
All leading to less consumer consumption, slower economy , more layoffs to cut costs, less consumer consumption etc.
So no ai related but many external factors at the same time. But ai is hiding the pain due to the high stock market valuations. Which may explain that despite all the usual recession symptoms we aren’t treating it as a recession.
That’s true! Naysayers keep mentioning it’s due to over hiring during Covid. I’d say it’s AI investment related and AI replacing a lot of software needs. Plus, people seem to use just a couple applications or platforms nowadays.
I'm kind of surprised that this is even moving the needle.
Really, what do you expect from a "profession" that has been trying to lower the entry level to a point where anyone with access to an AI is a programmer?
I remember when folks had to have a degree to enter the "profession" of software developer. Nowadays all you need to be a "programmer" is access to AI. And correspondingly the quality of the output has fallen to such a level that it no longer possible to distinguish between human generated or machine generated code.
The bad quality is hidden away with euphemisms such as "release early, release often" or "move fast and break things". The constant requirement to update because updates were broken is just another symptom of an industry gone badly wrong.
Worse still, the solution coming out the tech hubs isn't to slow down and reflect about these issues in IT, rather it's to throw even more technology at it. Technology that then also fails. Technology that is designed to cause vendor-lockin and dependence on a few controlling companies (OpenAI & Anthropic being the latest in a long line ... AWS for servers and Google for spreadsheets and email).
Hm ... now what do we do? More of the same probably.
> I remember when folks had to have a degree to enter the "profession" of software developer.
I am not old enough to remember that era; by the 1980s, when I was learning to code, it was already quite normal to get a programming job on the basis of skill you had acquired independently. The past era of quality code you refer to must already have ended, because most of the code I encountered back then would be considered garbage now.
I spent many years of my early career trying to lower the entry level to a point where anyone who could read and write English could be a programmer: this was a popular idea, part of the whole "democratization of computing" theme that came along with the development of the personal computer. BASIC was popular, GUI interface builders were popular, HyperCard was popular, there were many efforts to make software construction as easy as anything else you might do with a computer. This all continued into the web era.
In the end, though, it seems that the great majority of people don't want to make their own software.
> More of the same probably.
Yes, I imagine so. Technology keeps changing, but history goes around in circles!
Software people are kind of different than doctors or lawyers.. probably also the reason why they act much more innovative than any other profession up to the point to invent the damn thing that replaces them (and likely wipes out humanity at some point if we believe the plot of terminator or matrix)
Unsurprisingly, the "Who's Hiring" almost perfectly tracks the "Software Development Job Postings on Indeed in the United States" data from the fed, though it doesn't go as far back.
Back in 2023 when I was reading the "Who's hiring" for March I wanted to ask aloud "truly, who is?".
I'm happy my junior years passed before all this and I don't envy those who are just coming into this field.
And it's not just tech - all over my extended social circle there are people in various fields who were laid off. It's a crawling, largely invisible in the usual indicators, crisis.
I'm talking about why the 2022 data was so insanely different but things returned to apparently baseline by 2023, not why the 2026 data is slightly different.
There's a lot of things you could attribute it to: AI, the economy, career transitions. For me personally, more interested in freelance/consulting work at my stage of life vs. full-time gigs.
AI is definitely disruptive to technical work though but how do you attribute it without confounding it with the economy weakness or just people transitioning in their own career? Not an easy task.
Positions which are difficult to hire for are going to be up for much longer AND you will use additional channels for wider reach, there's nothing surprising about that.
Nothing to do with the bar for wanting a job being WAY lower than the bar for being able to even potentially hire someone they found on an internet forum.
I'm tired of reading job adverts for 3 people's jobs (frontend, backend, DevOps) all in one, all lead/staff/senior but not the salary to match any of that, not even close
It's not AI. It's cash flow and corporate lending across nearly every publicly traded company is as high as it can be without lenders raising eyebrows. It's been really bad for nearly a decade. You can see it in screeners. Everyone loaded up to the hilt on debt.
Started to reverse before ai though. With the law in US (which was reverted) that you couldn't use all software research as expense so you needed to pay tax on no-profit.
Then with increased interest rates. Which are still active and weirdly should've caused more hardship than ~3 months lower stocks.
And now ai, but this depends on demand for software too, which I don't how big it is, like can demand scale too with ai?
Like when you lower electricity cost people just use more electricity.
It all starter from With the law in US (which was reverted) that you couldn't use all software research as expense so you needed to pay tax on no-profit. Then you cannat hire people remotly if you do that you will loose tax benefits and stuff. then ai picked up . basically we are screwed
Could it actually be that the United States is in a plain old recession?
I know the stock markets are higher than ever due to AI investment. But the real economy may not be in a great shape hence the layoffs.
While the cause may be not be AI, but instead policy, e.g. tariffs. But also multiple conflicts ( Ukraine , Iran, Lebanon), leading higher oil , gas, critical raw material prices. China heavy exporting economy but not having domestic demand to fuel growth and bilateral trade with other countries.
All leading to less consumer consumption, slower economy , more layoffs to cut costs, less consumer consumption etc.
So no ai related but many external factors at the same time. But ai is hiding the pain due to the high stock market valuations. Which may explain that despite all the usual recession symptoms we aren’t treating it as a recession.
I am curious what other think.
That’s true! Naysayers keep mentioning it’s due to over hiring during Covid. I’d say it’s AI investment related and AI replacing a lot of software needs. Plus, people seem to use just a couple applications or platforms nowadays.
I'm kind of surprised that this is even moving the needle.
Really, what do you expect from a "profession" that has been trying to lower the entry level to a point where anyone with access to an AI is a programmer?
I remember when folks had to have a degree to enter the "profession" of software developer. Nowadays all you need to be a "programmer" is access to AI. And correspondingly the quality of the output has fallen to such a level that it no longer possible to distinguish between human generated or machine generated code.
The bad quality is hidden away with euphemisms such as "release early, release often" or "move fast and break things". The constant requirement to update because updates were broken is just another symptom of an industry gone badly wrong.
Worse still, the solution coming out the tech hubs isn't to slow down and reflect about these issues in IT, rather it's to throw even more technology at it. Technology that then also fails. Technology that is designed to cause vendor-lockin and dependence on a few controlling companies (OpenAI & Anthropic being the latest in a long line ... AWS for servers and Google for spreadsheets and email).
Hm ... now what do we do? More of the same probably.
> I remember when folks had to have a degree to enter the "profession" of software developer.
I am not old enough to remember that era; by the 1980s, when I was learning to code, it was already quite normal to get a programming job on the basis of skill you had acquired independently. The past era of quality code you refer to must already have ended, because most of the code I encountered back then would be considered garbage now.
I spent many years of my early career trying to lower the entry level to a point where anyone who could read and write English could be a programmer: this was a popular idea, part of the whole "democratization of computing" theme that came along with the development of the personal computer. BASIC was popular, GUI interface builders were popular, HyperCard was popular, there were many efforts to make software construction as easy as anything else you might do with a computer. This all continued into the web era.
In the end, though, it seems that the great majority of people don't want to make their own software.
> More of the same probably.
Yes, I imagine so. Technology keeps changing, but history goes around in circles!
I remember when folks had to have skills to enter the "profession" of software developer. Nowadays all you need to be a "programmer" is a degree.
Software people are kind of different than doctors or lawyers.. probably also the reason why they act much more innovative than any other profession up to the point to invent the damn thing that replaces them (and likely wipes out humanity at some point if we believe the plot of terminator or matrix)
I've been tracking this as well [1], and there's indeed a clear difference between pre-2023 and 2023 onward.
[1] https://hnjobs.mathieularose.com
Unsurprisingly, the "Who's Hiring" almost perfectly tracks the "Software Development Job Postings on Indeed in the United States" data from the fed, though it doesn't go as far back.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE
Most other industries follow a similar trend, but didn't fly quite as high in 2022 and aren't in as bad of a trough right now.
Electrical Engineering: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXDETPELECENGI (actually up slightly)
Accounting: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPACCO (more seasonal noise)
Marketing: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPMARK
Yours looks much nicer!
lowest amount yet
Back in 2023 when I was reading the "Who's hiring" for March I wanted to ask aloud "truly, who is?".
I'm happy my junior years passed before all this and I don't envy those who are just coming into this field.
And it's not just tech - all over my extended social circle there are people in various fields who were laid off. It's a crawling, largely invisible in the usual indicators, crisis.
It'd be interesting to go slightly farther back to better gauge the impact of the covid hiring craze.
Its not that dude. is been six years and we are still talkin g about that
I'm talking about why the 2022 data was so insanely different but things returned to apparently baseline by 2023, not why the 2026 data is slightly different.
The post attempts to compare to 2022 rates without asking if that has more to do with 2022 than now. Based on their graph https://raw.githubusercontent.com/santiagobasulto/hn-who-is-... it seems more to do with what was happening just prior to 2022.
There's a lot of things you could attribute it to: AI, the economy, career transitions. For me personally, more interested in freelance/consulting work at my stage of life vs. full-time gigs.
AI is definitely disruptive to technical work though but how do you attribute it without confounding it with the economy weakness or just people transitioning in their own career? Not an easy task.
I think the number of HNers also increased significantly over the last year. It'd be nice to see some uptick stats from dang or tomhow.
What I noticed lately is that everyone wants a principal or staff SWE. So much that I even think the titles are getting diluted.
Positions which are difficult to hire for are going to be up for much longer AND you will use additional channels for wider reach, there's nothing surprising about that.
They always have been diluted. Titles mean vastly different things at almost every company.
High interest rates and instability makes it a bad environment to invest, it raises the bar on speculative/growth investment, and tech is mainly that.
Mix that with heavy AI bills, there isn't a lot of budget left for hiring.
Nothing to do with the bar for wanting a job being WAY lower than the bar for being able to even potentially hire someone they found on an internet forum.
> I've noticed that "Who wants to be hired" posts are getting more comments than the "Who's hiring" ones.
Well, yeah. High supply of workers meets low demand of jobs.
i just wonder from "who want to be employed" how many from ai firm that fired people
I'm tired of reading job adverts for 3 people's jobs (frontend, backend, DevOps) all in one, all lead/staff/senior but not the salary to match any of that, not even close
you left out ai/ml stuff like agent/rags. the sad part is i'm willing to accept doing all this for a low salary but i just get rejected.
same
It's not AI. It's cash flow and corporate lending across nearly every publicly traded company is as high as it can be without lenders raising eyebrows. It's been really bad for nearly a decade. You can see it in screeners. Everyone loaded up to the hilt on debt.
Most of the money that used to go to software is going straight to Google and Meta. The well has run dry.
Why would it go to Meta?
I assume advertising. But I'd claim that the money is actually going to anthropic and to a lesser extent openai
Like they are building data centers right
OpenAI and Anthropic combined have less than 10% of Google revenue.
Yes, I'm talking about advertising (or marketing budget, from most companies, going to advertising and not websites and apps).
Started to reverse before ai though. With the law in US (which was reverted) that you couldn't use all software research as expense so you needed to pay tax on no-profit.
Then with increased interest rates. Which are still active and weirdly should've caused more hardship than ~3 months lower stocks.
And now ai, but this depends on demand for software too, which I don't how big it is, like can demand scale too with ai?
Like when you lower electricity cost people just use more electricity.
It all starter from With the law in US (which was reverted) that you couldn't use all software research as expense so you needed to pay tax on no-profit. Then you cannat hire people remotly if you do that you will loose tax benefits and stuff. then ai picked up . basically we are screwed