'Only 700 New IT Jobs' Were Created In US Last Year (theregister.com) 95
According to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the U.S. added a mere 700 IT jobs compared to 267,000 the year prior. The Register reports: Yet while layoffs have generally kept IT job growth flat for the past year (2023's net 700 comes despite more than 21,000 IT jobs being created in Q4), there's still a surplus of vacant roles, with [tech consultancy Janco Associates] finding some 88,000 remain open. "Based on our analysis, the IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are poor at best," said Janco CEO M Victor Janulaitis. "Currently, there are almost 100K unfilled jobs with over 101K unemployed IT Pros -- a skills mismatch."
In other words, while we're definitely dealing with correction from pandemic overhiring, we're also wading into a new paradigm where a lot of tech talent is going to have to retrain because AI is being crammed wherever C-level employees can stick it. Much of the layoff debt to hit IT jobs have come to entry-level positions, especially those in the customer service telecommunications and hosting automation areas. In turn, some of the responsibilities of those jobs are being reassigned to the latest and greatest AIs, says Janco.
According to the tech consultancy, entry-level IT demand is shrinking, though demand for those with AI, security, development, and blockchain skills remain desired. "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning IT Professionals remain in high demand," said Janulaitis. Still, plans to further replace humans with AI workers at the entry level are hardly far-fetched, with multiple reports finding much the same. [...] Those caught up by this year's tech layoffs seem to have a simple solution on their hands, as far as Janco's data suggests: Retrain for AI. Problem solved ... until the next big thing comes along.
In other words, while we're definitely dealing with correction from pandemic overhiring, we're also wading into a new paradigm where a lot of tech talent is going to have to retrain because AI is being crammed wherever C-level employees can stick it. Much of the layoff debt to hit IT jobs have come to entry-level positions, especially those in the customer service telecommunications and hosting automation areas. In turn, some of the responsibilities of those jobs are being reassigned to the latest and greatest AIs, says Janco.
According to the tech consultancy, entry-level IT demand is shrinking, though demand for those with AI, security, development, and blockchain skills remain desired. "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning IT Professionals remain in high demand," said Janulaitis. Still, plans to further replace humans with AI workers at the entry level are hardly far-fetched, with multiple reports finding much the same. [...] Those caught up by this year's tech layoffs seem to have a simple solution on their hands, as far as Janco's data suggests: Retrain for AI. Problem solved ... until the next big thing comes along.
very vague to just say IT jobs! (Score:2)
very vague to just say IT jobs!
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There was just a lot of layoffs (Score:4, Informative)
It sucks but as soon as interest rates drop a bit they'll be another hiring blitz. Although the increased reliance on cheap H1B labor means that entry level jobs will remain relatively weak.
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A bit? They'll need to drop quite a bit for people to start hiring again, the problem is that the government can't with current levels of government spending, otherwise they end up in a recession (which the US has by definitions used in prior administrations, been in for over 2 years).
High interest rates are basically a government tax, it pays for excess government spending, you will need to cut the government in half which almost none of the candidates for election will want to do (government bureaucrats w
Re:There was just a lot of layoffs (Score:5, Informative)
'otherwise they end up in a recession (which the US has by definitions used in prior administrations, been in for over 2 years)."
Completely false. The standard definition of a recession is, and has been for decades, that GDP shrink for two consecutive quarters. By this definition, there was a recession in the first two quarters of 2022, but no more. GDP has been up, every quarter since then; in Q3 of 2023, it was up an impressive 4.9%.
GDP is garbage metric (Score:1)
Moreso when so much of it is in health care and the arms offense industry that sees precious little benefits to Americans. Also seen in Russia where they are happily selling commodities to anyone who will buy them, while the much higher GDP Eurozone crumbles under inflation, deindustrialization and shortages.
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gov't spending isn't a problem (Score:3)
High interest rates are a tool used to crash the economy for working class people and cause layoffs. Powell literally said this [youtube.com]. The only reason he backed off (and the only reason any of us still have jobs) is that the banks are so poorly run they were too fragile for him to crank up rates until we all got fired.
Re: gov't spending isn't a problem (Score:2)
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is that the banks are so poorly run they were too fragile for him to crank up rates until we all got fired.
Which is exactly why that socialist Bill Ackman said it is once again up to the taxpayers to bail out banks [marketwatch.com].
Ackman, who runs Pershing Square Capital Management, and is not averse to an apocalyptical outburst, said the banking sector needed a temporary deposit guarantee immediately until an expanded government insurance scheme is widely available.
“We need to stop this now. We are beyond the point where the private sector can solve the problem and are in the hands of our government and regulators. Tick-tock.”
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"The problem is when we hand trillions to the 1% and they use it to buy up everything and rent it back to us."
I can see the next depression being caused by this. The wealthy buy up nearly all property and rent it back to the poor and middle class. Over time rent gets out of hand and too many people become homeless or live out of tents in the woods. This continues until a breaking point and everything falls apart.
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You could start by cutting the biggest voice in the government budget: military.
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Appease the Feds? What money-making company cares about appeasing the Feds? Actual money-making companies care only about this month's profit, nothing beyond that.
need experience with own internally developed apps (Score:1)
or maybe need experience with app X when it's just about the same app A and other bs.
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Was this article written by AI? (Score:2)
"Janco's data suggests: Retrain for AI."
time to organize IT people into a union so they ca (Score:4, Interesting)
time to organize IT people into a union so they can help setup and good trades system to help the working man fill the skills mismatch
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Re: time to organize IT people into a union so the (Score:2)
Fuck that shit.
I had better starting pay (read: no experience at all) as a network engineer in Phoenix (which at the time was below the national average cost of living) in 2016 than the average CWA network engineer today. If I was under them I guarantee you that I'd have been contractually bound to have a lower starting pay due to not having seniority, AND paying them dues, AND have less vacation pay. And I guarantee you that the ones with seniority in the union would have sucked at their jobs and have mass
GFY, bootlicker (Score:2)
The best paid workers on the planet are all members of unions, you pathetic scab. Actors, directors, pro athletes. All paid based on what they produce, but none taken advantage of.
The only thing you have to lose are your chains.
Re: GFY, bootlicker (Score:2)
That's some nice cherry picking. Oh wait, I've got one: Which national unions haven't had leaders embezzling or making backdoor deals with employers?
Anyways, who are you working for? Bonanno? Colombo? Gambino? And how much are they skimming off your check? And whose lawn do you have to mow for free every week in order to get work?
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Because there's no corporate corruption? Laughs in the tens of trillions in corporate bailouts over the last 15 years. The hundreds of people killed by Boeing Max planes. The dozens killed by faulty GM ignitions that they knew were a problem and could have been prevented by another 50 cents a vehicle.
All the union corruption ever, combined, is utterly insignificant next to one day of corporate corruption.
Re: GFY, bootlicker (Score:2)
What does that have to do with anything? Not only is that a really bad case of whataboutism, but it's not even relevant. We're talking about organizations that you're basically forced into joining of you want a particular job, being forced to pay them even if you don't want to, and them basically stealing from that money. And worse, when they do that, you can't do anything about it. The money is spent and it's just gone. Sure, they might go to jail or something, but good luck recovering any of that. At that
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Your cognitive dissonance, being a class traitor, hypocrisy and double standards.
Whattaboutism is a term whipped out by really bad hypocrites who have no defense for their extremely selective stances.
Re: GFY, bootlicker (Score:2)
Your cognitive dissonance, being a class traitor, hypocrisy and double standards.
Is that anything like a gender traitor or a race traitor? That being, a stupid statement made by extremist assholes. I personally don't consider myself to be a member of any particular class.
Actually better yet, which "class" do you think I belong to?
Whattaboutism is a term whipped out by really bad hypocrites who have no defense for their extremely selective stances.
What am I being hypocritical about? And what stance am I selective on? I don't like cartels, of any variety. That's not you obviously, as you do approve of at least some cartels.
If you think that's bad, wait until you get a load of capitalism, where you have all that times 100 for quarterly dividends, only unlike with unions you don't get a vote.
Oh that's the beauty of it. If I don't like where I work, I simply go somewhere els
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> massive egos that can't accept being wrong
I don't think that's limited to any position of seniority. I've met people with massive egos through at all sorts of levels and experience. Some people can accept they're incorrect, some people can't. There's an expectation that people get better at accepting they're wrong as they mature as they're expected to have encountered it.
I find those who have excessive amounts of money have a different world view as they're not used to people telling them they're wrong
Union... Ummm... I don't know... (Score:2)
Office Space taught me that robbing the place then burning the whole thing down to the last stapler is a far more profitable solution.
Only thing lacking is having the company owner burning with it but I guess men's reach must sometimes exceed the grasp, or what's a heaven for, mmmk?
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time to organize IT people into a union
Not until you change the laws concerning unions. We have already seen how organized labor gets corrupted quickly. I would rather there not be more middlemen in my earning potential if they won't really be helping me. Just fucking over the owners is insufficient reason to join.
It's not a "skills mismatch".. (Score:5, Informative)
It's a salary expectations mismatch. Lots of IT professionals have been laid off from various companies, who are now trying to rehire those same people with a 20% to 40% haircut. This is a result of over hiring during the pandemic, plus a (mistaken) belief that AI is going to reduce the need for software positions.
I don't think it's going to work out in the long run for companies who are overly aggressive at doing this. The most innovative engineers will likely steer clear of those who constantly lay people off. But it's going to take a few years before we get back to seeing the classic whine "We don't have enough local IT professionals, which is why we need to be able to hire people bubbling out of dubious Indian diploma mills at discount rates."
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Stats to back that up? We hear about companies like disney firing their IT staff to hire foreign workers and forcing their staff to train their cheaper replacement or lose any severance packages. The impression isn't that local people don't have the skillset, it's that they can get it cheaper. Of course there are exceptions, but are you sure that's the rule?
Anytime they've looked into no one has been like "Oh my god, I can't believe how much we're paying these foreign workers, why, why you won't you pay tha
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I don't make anything approaching that, but am constantly reminded that I can be replaced by an Indian developer for 1/4 my rate.
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It's always been this.
Companies complain there isn't enough labor but what they really mean is they can't find anyone at the wages they want to pay, as it's really hard on them as they're trying to pay off their second home, while most people this generation will never afford a house.
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There is a pronounced lack of people who are no older than 25, have 10 years experience in a technology that didn't exist 2 years ago and work for less than 30k a year.
There always was, there is and there always will be a severe lack of such staff.
Re:It's not a "skills mismatch".. (Score:4)
There is a pronounced lack of people who are no older than 25, have 10 years experience in a technology that didn't exist 2 years ago and work for less than 30k a year.
This is always my favorite screenshot [imgur.com] when employers whine they can't find people to fill jobs.
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That was priceless, thanks for posting that, gave me a laugh.
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I've seen that stuff all the time, stuff like 5 years of Windows Server 2022, 15 years of Swift. Either it is just cluelessness, or someone is making impossible reqs to buck for a H-1B.
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What's going on there is simple.
You beg and badger your higher ups to FINALLY give you another slot for a team member. Usually this happens after you showed with undeniable proof that you could have sold the person-equivalent at least 1.5 times over and that the company is leaving money on the table. Of course, you're the manager who knows the numbers but not that tech stuff. So you go to your team and ask them what they need. Then they dream up the perfect candidate. He should know this. Oh, and that. And
Re: It's not a "skills mismatch".. (Score:2)
Those aren't hard rules at all in my experience. And unless your manager literally has time to sift through a crapload of resumes and do the legwork to find people who haven't even applied, they're going to need a recruiter to assist with that instead of...managing.
Re: It's not a "skills mismatch".. (Score:2)
I've literally never met the "x number of years" requirement on any job I've ever been hired for, sometimes by several years. I think those are just set by HR people to match some kind of experience they want for what the job actually pays. If they do that, it may be a safe bet that the job pays more than you expect. Always has been in my case anyways. Just ignore those if you really do want the job and apply anyways. Worst case, they don't call you back and you move on.
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The RTO trend to save face over prior bad real estate commitments is also a significant factor.
Re: It's not a "skills mismatch".. (Score:1)
Perplexity gets the answer right.
I hope the right LLM was used when my self driving car goes to interpret the flashing lights at the RR crossing.
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And I sure as all hell don't complain, it's total job security for security. Because that AI generated code is even worse than the crap the cargo-cult StackExchange copy/pasters would whip up.
Because, well, take a wild guess what is used to train that AI to barf up code...
Garbage in, garbage out.
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It is a skills mismatch because they want 5 years of experience in something that's only been out 2.
Or maybe a fibber mismatch. The right liars are not being matched up with the right gullible rubes.
Re: It's not a "skills mismatch".. (Score:2)
How would they possibly give somebody like me a 20-40% haircut? I shave my head completely bald.
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Discrimination, right there. /s
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The report doesn't actually say much about "engineers." It does talk about support and customer service roles. Some of those might actually be replaceable by AI. Based on my own experience trying to get answers through customer service, I'd certainly think AI could do better!
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> This is a result of over hiring during the pandemic, plus a (mistaken) belief that AI is going to reduce the need for software positions.
This, there was an assumption that "cloud" was going to destroy a lot of hosting jobs. In reality I think what's happened is there are now more positions as you have IaaS people *and* people now to check the charges, they're called "FinOps" I believe. So more jobs are needed as you can't just write blank cheques to AWS/Azure/GCP.
Something similar is has to happen in t
Retrain has always been the rule in IT (Score:5, Insightful)
If 10% of your compensation isn't directed to ongoing training, you're falling behind.
Now, though, I think we're looking at the bottom of the career pyramid getting cut off and the layer above that getting thinned out.
And a whole new generation will get to experience the fun of job postings demanding 5 years of experience in 2-3 technologies that haven't been around that long and are specializations rarely found in the same person.
Re:Retrain has always been the rule in IT (Score:4, Interesting)
Alternative A is directing 10% of your compensation (and umpteen hours) to constant burnout of reinvention.
Alternative B is chasing every paycheck you can when the getting is good, saving north of 50% of it, then retiring frugally to Bulgaria (or rural Indiana or what have you) by your early 40s, beyond which age you're "an old fart".
I took path B, now I get to sleep in and play guitar and disc golf all day. Highly recommended.
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Alternative C, what I did: Make the training part of your contract. I get 10% of my salary as a training budget (which means more money in total because that training budget doesn't get taxed as wage, which is ridiculously high in my country), get additional days for training, get the travel and hotel fees paid and in return my employer gets me to stay.
It's win-win for both sides. I get training without burning out and without breaking the bank, they get a top of the line security person that's always on to
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I've always figured if you're a contractor you handle your own training just like you handle your own taxes and healthcare plan, etc. If you're a full time employee and training isn't included in your compensation package, that's not a good sign.
I'm working for a small business right now, and training is definitely provided / provided for, including time on the clock for it. They don't want anyone falling behind and becoming less valuable to the business.
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Same here, but unfortunately, that's by no means the standard.
The standard is to use a person until their skills are obsolete, throw them away and hire someone who has the skill. Then you can take your savings, get back up to speed and start the treadmill over, of course with the promise that "we invest in our staff, pinky swear" in your next company.
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Reason #10257 why contracting is shit, along with the rest of capitalism.
(Yes, the cat has my tongue) (Score:2)
700? We'd better get more H-1B permits then!
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Why? Just offshore. Much cheaper and less complicated than H1B.
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I'm hiring (Score:2)
You need 3 things to work for me:
1. Knowledge/experience. You have to know more or less how to do the job, or at least how to figure it out in a reasonable amount of time.
2. You need to pass a drug test, once.
3. You need to show up on site 5 days a week.
Crazy how hard it is to find those 3 things. I won't expect anything of you that I don't also expect from myself.
Re: I'm hiring (Score:1)
on site? to work at a computer?
diamond hard pass.
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I won't expect anything of you that I don't also expect from myself.
Neither do I.
Now get into that gimp suit and kneel down in front of the fucking machine.
Huh? What do you mean, "no"? Jeesh, people just don't want to fuck anymore.
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I'm not in that line of work.
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I'm not in the line that keeps office chairs from going into orbit.
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You have 2000 security engineers with 5+ years experience as pentester with at least an OSCP certification to show?
Could you send just 5 of them my way? We're paying good headhunter bonuses.
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Apply with banks in Europe. They got deep pocket and the C-Levels are liable with their private money if they can't show that they took "reasonable steps" to keep security blunders from happening.
You get budgets in the millions because your CEO wants to make sure they don't come to impound his Jaguar.
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Blue team lead and security management lead is a colleague of mine, but I'll gladly forward it to him, especially if you have a (valid) CISSP cert (or if you'll soon have one, hell, WANTING one is already good, we'll take care of that course if you have the qualifications for it). Are you willing (and preferably able, but that can be arranged) to work in Austria, Europe, and how can I contact you?
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Background tests and drug tests are required by the industry. When you support people that do physical things in the office, you also need to be in the office to support them. While we are not a manufacturer, you can imagine that manufacturers have a factory and do work in the factory, manufacturers do not send boxes of parts to employee's homes to have them do assembly at home (generally speaking).
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Sure.
What are you paying though? ...and there is where this often falls apart. I don't know you so you might be paying really well, I've heard of cases where people are and they're good jobs, but still have trouble finding people. That's the exception though, not the rule. Typically when employers can't find workers it's because the type of work isn't desirable and there isn't enough compensation to get people to want to do it locally.
In some situations where they are paying well, they're also competing wit
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1. is easy.
2. sure. once is good enough.
3. hard pass. you're going to have to change your thinking since that indicates you fail in the reverse job interview i.e. where i judge if youre worth my time working for you. and unless you literally pay more than 125% extra you are competing against corporations who will offer normal salaries to work from home. and guess where the people who can do 1 and 2 will go to.
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My son, who is 24 and has a bunch of peers who graduated with programming degrees are all unemployed. (my son did not get a degree in programming, has a job, and does not work in tech). They won't accept jobs under $100k, and are wondering why they're unemploy
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Recruiters: this company is an ideal target to get new employees from!
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What is the requirement for passing the drug test?
Office Space Correlation (Score:2)
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A lot of facility management and cleaning jobs went poof with WFH. I wonder if they're considered "IT jobs" in this context.
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Look at the jobs that are safe (Score:2)
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I'm more into Lotus bulbs. But I just bought 12kg, estimated about 250pieces.
Whaddya got against C devs? (Score:1)
That sentence is so wrong in so many ways. Gotta love The Register.
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Aren't you funny! You have some "sharp" wit.
Wait... what?! (Score:2)
So you're saying that when a tech bubble burst and hundreds of thousands of people were laid off, that there wasn't robust job creation in that sector?
SUPER WEIRD, RIGHT?
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I read this the opposite way.
Big Tech laid off thousands of IT workers, but the rest of the market need so much help that they rehired all of those laid off workers, and still needed 700 more.
no entry level jobs (Score:2)
"plans to further replace humans with AI workers at the entry level are hardly far-fetched, with multiple reports finding much the same."
So AI is already reaching a point where it can do a lot of 'entry level' work, which is where humans would normally have been trained and acquired experience early in their careers.
"AI, security, development, and blockchain skills remain desired". This is eventually going to be self-defeating (I hope) because there won't be any new hires graduating to a level of knowledge