Reclassification Is Making US Tech Job Losses Look Worse Than They Are (theregister.com) 40
According to consultancy firm Janco, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reclassified several job titles, "leading to a downward adjustment of over 111,000 positions for November and December 2024," The Register reports. This revision contributed to an overall decline of 123,000 IT jobs for the year. However, in reality, IT sector hiring is on the rise, with 11,000 new positions added in January. From the report: "Many CEOs have given CFOs and CIOs the green light to hire IT Pros," Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis said of the first month of 2025. "IT Pros who were unemployed last month found jobs more quickly than was anticipated as CIOs rushed to fill open positions." There's still a 5.7 percent unemployment rate in the IT sector in January, Janco noted, which is greater than the national average of 4 percent - and which could rise further as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) pushes ahead with federal workforce reductions aimed at streamlining operations.
"Over the past several quarters much of the overall job growth was in the government sectors of the economy," Janulaitis said. "With the new administration that will in all probability not be the case in the future. "The impact of the DOGE initiatives has not been felt as of yet," Janulaitis added. "Economic uncertainty continues to hurt overall IT hiring." Despite this, Janco reported an addition of 11,000 new IT roles in January. Unfortunately, there's also been a surge in IT unemployment over the same period, with the number of jobless IT pros rising to 152,000 in January - an increase of 54,000 in a single month. [...]
Closing out the report, Janco offered a mixed outlook: While IT jobs are expected to grow over the next few years, many white-collar roles could be eliminated. "Over the next five years, the number of individuals employed as IT professionals will increase while many white-collar jobs in the function will be eliminated with the application of AI and LLM to IT," Janco predicted.
"Over the past several quarters much of the overall job growth was in the government sectors of the economy," Janulaitis said. "With the new administration that will in all probability not be the case in the future. "The impact of the DOGE initiatives has not been felt as of yet," Janulaitis added. "Economic uncertainty continues to hurt overall IT hiring." Despite this, Janco reported an addition of 11,000 new IT roles in January. Unfortunately, there's also been a surge in IT unemployment over the same period, with the number of jobless IT pros rising to 152,000 in January - an increase of 54,000 in a single month. [...]
Closing out the report, Janco offered a mixed outlook: While IT jobs are expected to grow over the next few years, many white-collar roles could be eliminated. "Over the next five years, the number of individuals employed as IT professionals will increase while many white-collar jobs in the function will be eliminated with the application of AI and LLM to IT," Janco predicted.
The job losses are pretty bad... (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who was working at a F500 company, all the people I was with that got laid off last year, pretty much 95% of them are still looking for work. A lot of them went from specialized, high paying roles to mall Santas last year, literally. I was lucky to have found work, because of my skillset, but most people who may not have stuff that is a lifeline are not going to find work.
This isn't just job loss... it is a complete career loss, like 2000, where if someone lost a job in 2000, it was not until 2003-2004 before they found anything, especially after the uncertainty of 9/11. Same with this. First, it was the election keeping hiring from happening, then the changing of the guard in the White House, not all the tariffs and uncertainty of the current administration, all of that is ensuring job reqs are all but nil, and any job reqs are all H-1B contractors, courtesy Biden who had two H-1B lotteries last year, pouring 200,000 people with that visa into the US economy, each of those people forcing an American into the unemployment lines.
What I find insulting is that the press always considers the tech implosion underblown. Of course, the truth is right in front of their noses. In 2022, Indeed offered a ton of jobs. Come 2024, the jobs started having 250 applicants, then 1000+ applicants each, even for a level 1 job. Now, the jobs are not there, other than ghost jobs for H-1Bs or job postings posted purely to make paper-pushers happy with the candidate already selected. The same people in the press who always underplay how shitty the tech ihdustry really is are the same ones who whine about how all art and music is being replaced by AI.
We have not even hit bottom with this recession, especially with tariffs and hostile foreign powers showing their true colors. All of this is always papered over by the press and bogus statistics showing, "jobs r fine, l2work", which are just outright falsehoods. I guess let the mockery continue, but the implosion will hit them too soon enough.
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> had two H-1B lotteries last year, pouring 200,000 people with that visa into the US economy
That's a pet peeve of mine: the visa rate isn't lowered when STEM unemployment goes up. And the stupid job ad games co's play to bypass citizens.
They would just cook the numbers (Score:1)
A federal jobs guarantee is the only practical way out of the mess we got ourselves in here. That and fighting voters suppression because you aren't going to get s
Re: They would just cook the numbers (Score:2)
There isn't a single political party or politician that's serious about reducing immigration.
Probably because it's a very bad idea.
What you should be demanding is a federal jobs guarantee and I mean good jobs. You bring the skills then the government will bring the jobs. If the private sector isn't going to meet demand we will do it ourselves through the instrument of government.
And that's an even worse idea. If you really want it that bad, go to Cuba. Their constitution guarantees the right to a job, you'll love it there.
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As someone who was working at a F500 company, all the people I was with that got laid off last year, pretty much 95% of them are still looking for work. A lot of them went from specialized, high paying roles to mall Santas last year, literally. I was lucky to have found work, because of my skillset, but most people who may not have stuff that is a lifeline are not going to find work.
This isn't just job loss... it is a complete career loss, like 2000, where if someone lost a job in 2000, it was not until 2003-2004 before they found anything, especially after the uncertainty of 9/11. Same with this. First, it was the election keeping hiring from happening, then the changing of the guard in the White House, not all the tariffs and uncertainty of the current administration, all of that is ensuring job reqs are all but nil, and any job reqs are all H-1B contractors, courtesy Biden who had two H-1B lotteries last year, pouring 200,000 people with that visa into the US economy, each of those people forcing an American into the unemployment lines.
What I find insulting is that the press always considers the tech implosion underblown. Of course, the truth is right in front of their noses. In 2022, Indeed offered a ton of jobs. Come 2024, the jobs started having 250 applicants, then 1000+ applicants each, even for a level 1 job. Now, the jobs are not there, other than ghost jobs for H-1Bs or job postings posted purely to make paper-pushers happy with the candidate already selected. The same people in the press who always underplay how shitty the tech ihdustry really is are the same ones who whine about how all art and music is being replaced by AI.
We have not even hit bottom with this recession, especially with tariffs and hostile foreign powers showing their true colors. All of this is always papered over by the press and bogus statistics showing, "jobs r fine, l2work", which are just outright falsehoods. I guess let the mockery continue, but the implosion will hit them too soon enough.
Don't worry. Once we get the war started, there'll be plenty of jobs. On the front lines. The drones won't be replacing us there for a while yet. Gotta burn through some bodies first.
Re: The job losses are pretty bad... (Score:2)
Ukraine has just showed that the drones can replace us on the front lines now, with an all drone attack which was very successful. Soldiers came in behind the drones and claimed the area. And they did not even use any swarms.
Re: The job losses are pretty bad... (Score:2)
You can still go volunteer as a vanguard if you'd like, nobody will stop you. Though, as with most things, there's a reason most of us would rather automate it.
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Don't worry. Once we get the war started, there'll be plenty of jobs. On the front lines. The drones won't be replacing us there for a while yet. Gotta burn through some bodies first.
What war did you have in mind? One against Russia?
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Don't worry. Once we get the war started, there'll be plenty of jobs. On the front lines. The drones won't be replacing us there for a while yet. Gotta burn through some bodies first.
What war did you have in mind? One against Russia?
Nah. Trump likes Putin. A Trump-led World War III is more likely to start with the U.S. invading Canada and Mexico, then going on to try to conquer China, only to find every major city in the world glowing a few minutes later.
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I sort of share your sentiment, but we haven't even hit the start of a recession yet.
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We may have, they're often identified after the fact.
(I'm not saying we have, or even that we will, just pointing out we're in the conditions where we may be in one without knowing).
Biden doesn't control how many H1Bs (Score:2, Informative)
Don't get me wrong Democrats will cheerfully throw us all under a bus when it comes to immigration. But they're doing it because they're dumb as a blade of fucking grass. They think it helps the economy enough that it's worth the job losses to us you're in the trenches. On paper it should be but because there's so much wealth inequality we don't get any of the benefits from all th
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Your F500 company is not representative of the market as a whole. My company, a large software vendor, is *hiring* many of those who are coming out of companies like yours.
Yes, the big name tech firms or downsizing. The news camps on this because it's dramatic and draws eyeballs. The reality is that there are still plenty of jobs out there. Maybe not jobs that pay California salaries, but for the rest of the country, where $150K is great money for a developer, and where it goes farther than that bigger sala
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> Your F500 company is not representative of the market as a whole. My company, a large software vendor, is *hiring* many of those who are coming out of companies like yours.
If my sleuthing is correct, that would be TCP Software. Glossing over the openings (a), I see 11 openings in the US. Of the 11 domestic openings, 2 are technical roles; 1 Cloud ops and 1 QA. Considering there've been 10,800 tech layoffs this year on top of the 152,000 tech layoffs last year (b), those "many" US openings aren't going
History (Score:4, Interesting)
Those of us in the job market in the early 1990's remember the STEM slump triggered by the reduction of our military due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It also impacted non-defense STEM jobs as former military employees applied to those same non-military jobs.
The movie "Falling Down" was partly inspired by that event. It's a cult classic. An unemployed defense contractor having marriage difficulties and frozen in LA traffic finally snaps and goes on a rampage. In one scene he threatens a burger shop because their actual hamburgers don't match their fluffy display pictures. It's a collection of venting over white-collar pet peeves.
DOGE may trigger a similar phenomenon. I won't make a judgement call on the general value of DOGE here, only saying it's playing with recession.
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> I won't make a judgement call on the general value of DOGE here, only saying it's playing with recession.
I don't know which way it will go but those workers may be noncontributing or parasitic on society and may soon be unleashed into creative endeavors.
Especially if business-creatiion regulations are rewound to 1970's levels, as in the case of all the big Silicon Valley legends being born.
The old-school behemoths, not the current crop of Broligarchs.
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I don't know which way it will go but those workers may be noncontributing or parasitic on society and may soon be unleashed into creative endeavors.
Only if there's VC funding to be had, which seems pretty unlikely.
Especially if business-creatiion regulations are rewound to 1970's levels, as in the case of all the big Silicon Valley legends being born.
Regulations aren't the problem. The problem is that the wealthy horde their money instead of funneling it into new businesses, and private equity is focused on milking existing companies until they die, rather than on creating something new.
You know it's something I always found funny (Score:3)
I certainly have a better schadenfreude although the reasoning parts of my brain know that what I really want is for those conservatives to learn from the experience and demand everyone gets a good job no matter what. In other words the federal jobs guarantee. And I mean real jobs. You bring the skills an
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> gets as much propaganda in their face as Americans do. I think we get more of it than Russia and China combined.
Capitalists are more efficient at generating BS than socialistic communists.
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Waves hands vaguely around. (Score:3)
"Uh, um, let's see, RECLASSIFICATION! Yeah, that's it! That's the ticket! We reclassified them from working to not working! I mean, we reclassified those jobs from available positions to no longer available positions, after laying them all off. Yeah, that's it. See? No worries everybody. You're not being shoved out of the window. We're totally moving the window toward you so it feels like you're voluntarily jumping when it slams into you! SEE! SEE!"
I'm kinda tired of the refrain at this point. There's all these reasons that watching the tech sector jobs disappear doesn't actually mean the tech sector jobs are disappearing, yet, they are still disappearing. I don't care how many layers of curtains you throw over that dumpster fire, it's still burning right through them.
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IT has generally been cyclical, roughly on a decade cycle since at least the video game crash of '82. The late 2000's slump was averted due to the iPhone boom. Can't always get lucky.
IT will be double-whacked if and when there's an AI bust. The investment to profit ratio is too high to sustain, begging for a crash. Everyone is chasing market share like a game of musical chairs.
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> The late 2000's slump was averted due to the iPhone boom. Can't always get lucky.
Clarification: the 2020-ish slump was delayed due to pandemic-related increases in IT, but eventually arrived.
Demand a federal jobs guarantee (Score:2)
If you genuinely believe your skills have value then you shouldn't have any problem having them used.
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Hand waver rebutted by another hand waver.
Big Tech is shrinking, yes. But overall, tech is doing just fine. Big Tech overextended itself in 2020-2022, now it's having to scale back. No, the job market isn't as white-hot as it was in 2021, but there are still plenty of jobs, for those willing to take salaries that make sense in middle America.
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Hand waver rebutted by another hand waver.
Big Tech is shrinking, yes. But overall, tech is doing just fine. Big Tech overextended itself in 2020-2022, now it's having to scale back. No, the job market isn't as white-hot as it was in 2021, but there are still plenty of jobs, for those willing to take salaries that make sense in middle America.
The problem is, salaries that make sense in middle America will barely even cover your rent in the Bay Area, where the median rent in SF is just over $3,000 ($36k per year). Average IT salaries in TN are about $48k per year before taxes. After taxes, including California income tax, that would be $38,716. So even if they feed you every meal during the week and provide electricity to charge your car, that leaves you less than $250 a month to pay for electricity, your cell phone plan, your Internet service
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First, your numbers aren't realistic.
In Nashville:
- The average software engineer salary is $94K. https://www.indeed.com/career/... [indeed.com]
- The average IT Technician salary is $69K. https://www.indeed.com/career/... [indeed.com]
So you're right, these wages won't cut it in the bay area. So move! I did. I live in Houston, and moved 700 miles from home to get there, because that's where I found work, in a place that was affordable. Later in my career, I moved 1,000+ miles, twice, for work.
If you want the Bay Area so badly that yo
Excuses for poor data management, anyone? (Score:2)
"We can't get valid data, so we'll blame the data."
This is record unemployment in IT (Score:5, Insightful)
While there have been recessions with higher general unemployment, this is the first time in my career I've heard of a 5.7% unemployment rate for IT professionals.
I got a degree because I believed that doing so would give me better job security than just starting a business. Turns out, I should have just started a business instead.
It's got nothing to do with efficiency (Score:1, Offtopic)
He's going to crash the economy, force you to blow through all your savings and sell your house and then he hopes you're going to start spitting out kids out o
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As for birth rates he said "population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming."
And the fix for that is?
The compact has been broken and it will take a long long time to build it up again.
There is no incentive for young males to become fathers, or enter into relationships. And young women have been convinced that they can wait until they are just about in menopause, and use IVF to deal with geriatric pregnancy.
It costs hella to raise a kid today, and if you are a male in a relationship having children, you are considered a pedophile by default. You are considered a physical abu
not really (Score:2)
There's a lot of people at work right now, and several additional friends reported losing their jobs today. They were working for a contractor with the department of justice. Looking back, I can't think of any other time where I've had such a large number of friends out of work.
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The sad thing is there are more still unannounced layoffs coming in tech. I've heard some harsh numbers whispered from people being forced to prepare staff reductions. I feel bad for kids comping out of college; it's as bleak as it's even been for junior roles. This is starting to make the dot-com crash look like it wasn't that bad in hindsight. We're lost over 500,000 tech jobs since 2022, and I'm guessing over half of those jobs won't be coming back. Tech unemployment is 50% higher than non-tech unemploym
More BS (Score:1)