My entire web team got laid off from a major car company. Right before we got paid our yearly bonus and right before I went on my paternity leave.
So plenty of turnover.
It’s always the fucking suits.
Everyone else are constantly laid off and have to find work again. And again. And again.
The working class is getting raped by people who went to businesses school.
Both literally, and figuratively.
At this point for people who lost their jobs it would be much better for all of us to make new companies together that are not on stock market also unionized, cooperative, or unionized cooperative.
Coming back to the same companies who will just fire us for more profit is not a sustainable cycle for anybody. Yes apply for jobs if you really need it but let’s want better for ourselves.
We can release Open source/documentation/procedures/business documentation/management documentation etc to collectively make it easier to create different new tech companies for specific things.
We can spin up an opensourcebusiness community here on Lemmy to do it together (Have no idea how to and have projects already if any people would like to pick up this initiative)
Have you talked to a lot of tech workers? I feel like there’s a set of left wing ones, a larger set of libertarian types, and an even larger set of people who are shockingly ignorant of politics and history.
Might not seem like it in recent years, but there are still tech workers with standards and morals
I think a lot about the guy I worked with that said he was going to Palantir. We were like “but what if they have you doing awful things?” He was like, big shrug. He was always friendly to people in the office, but I guess that’s as far as it went.
Yea, I know someone who did the same, and we really haven’t talked since. It sucks that people will put aside their ethics for cash, but it’s not everyone. These people are the ones who get the most headlines
Love the idea
Tech companies don’t innovate anymore. Their Wall Street string-pullers demand reliable profit growth so they kill innovation through buyouts and are left with stale products they can only make worse and/or charge more for. Layoffs are a direct wealth transfer from working class labor to wealthy shareholders and the street rewards execs for it every time.
And if you’re thinking AI is innovative, it’s got executives in a fever pitch for the same reasons - so companies can fire expensive labor and big tech can become even more monopolistic, shove more ads, push more propaganda, and control the internet. It’s fortunate it doesn’t work that well so far. Bubble can’t pop soon enough.
Removed by mod
What if it doesnt pop and what we are seeing is the foundation for the dystopian society? Data centers being built will be used to monitor everyone in real time, connected to Ai of course so humans are not needed to watch it.
I think this is exactly what is happening. There is a huge financial incentive to build that world where humans no longer are needed. Thats why I think this is not a bubble, it just looks like it.
In the future, they will ask, how come people didnt stop the building of data centers for all of that dystopian stuff. Well, this is why. Its being sold as an improvement for human productivity, when its really about automation and removing the need for many humans to be part of the loop at all.
I spend way too much time living with this obvious truth-to-come’s future impact on my children. The AI bubble will pop and bring the market down with it, and there will be a net to catch everyone just like the ones that prevent suicides at the FOXCONN factories. I truly hope my children never taste (or become) soylent green but literally everything is on the table after seeing how greedy and cowardly nearly every human is when push comes to shove over the last 5 years.
The dehumanization frog is being boiled right in front of us, and its way less sophisticated than I ever thought it would be. project2025.observer does a great job at tracking the totality of the christofascist endgame IMO. Dehumanization being normalized will allow them to move on to political opponents heading into midterms.
This absolutely has to do with AI. If 1 tech worker now has the productivity of 2 tech workers, then they only need to hire half as many workers. Junior developer positions don’t really exist anymore. If we want new jobs, we need new businesses that try to solve the problems that still exist, like the lack of recycling. I’m lucky to have a job in the refurbishment industry, but I’m starting to strongly believe I’m going to need to start my own business next year.
Yes, that is what the clueless executives think.
I’ve never worked with a junior developer that was worse than AI is now. It’s often confidently wrong and can do so much damage, all while winning the politics battle without trying.
The company I work for, which is a large publicly traded tech company, feels like a Darwinian hell right now. There’s an internship and a handful got hired out of it, but that was more the exception than the rule.
Honestly same thing here. They didn’t even do internships anymore.
They don’t seem to be hiring anyone that’s not a senior engineer either.
They also have been regularly laying off folks every year or more than once a year but not backfilling. So workloads are up.
Couple of this with them freezing promotions and now they’re risking high performers leaving because they aren’t being considered and rewarded for their contribution levels and engagement.
Leaving to go where?
To other companies?
There is a lot movement opportunity for experienced developers still.
West. There’s gold in them thar hills!
We must work at the same place.
Atmospheric and Oceanic science has been heavily defunded this year. A quarter of my program at NOAA has been laid off this year.
If I lost my science job, I was planning on going into tech. Now where do I go??? It feels like the walls are closing in.
I should have gone to a trade school instead :/ STEM was a bad choice.
I was going to mention it seemed about right but it is worse than back then and I can’t put my finger on why and I think you have found it for me. Since stem across the board is being hit it makes it that much worse than just a tech meltdown.
unironically, just leave the US. plenty of countries/international research orgs are pouching all sorts of US-intelligencia right now.
This is not entirely true and blown away out of proportion by the writers of all the articles you’re seeing. For example that big one that got a bunch of attention in France was only for 15 applicants. Also outside of a few exceptions, most STEM workers lack the resources to pick up and leave where they are at.
yeah that stuff is about grabbing PhD’s with labs that have or could possibly win nobels and such or just is doing big things in technology. Bad for the us but not useful for people generally working in stem.
Counter arguement: you need to do your own research/planning/applications and so on. There won’t always be an easy “all inclusive” path. But opportunities are there for those who are looking for them.
That being said, it would massively help to speak at least one other language fluently.
You’re also correct that it’s not easy from a resource perspective. But if people from much poorer countries can make it work, than so can people in the US.
just
You say this like it is easy/simple
Depends on what stage of life you’re at.
It isn’t simple at any stage.
I left and got two Sr SWE positions within 3 months. It’s like the 90’s down here
Where did you land? How much paperwork was involved in the transition?
Dual citizen with Australia, sorry. Though it is fairly light paperwork for Americans who are in tech - as in the U.S., the best chances are to get in stateside with a big company that has an Aussie HQ (Atlassian, Xero, Canva, FAANG, etc.) and then transfer
That explains it being like the 90s. That’s Australia in general. New Zealand is more like the 70s.
Ah, I see what you mean now. Thanks. I’m trying to get my employer to allow me to relocate to the UK as they have an office there (putting aside Brexit and all the stupid decisions of late they have been making). It’s an uphill battle where at any point someone could veto the decision because they don’t want to have to deal with the headache. I need a bigger company that is willing to go the distance with the legal hoops. That’s usually a massive company like the ones you mention as opposed to a smaller companies that I tend to work for.
Tech is a field where there’s always infinite work to do, and it’s always only limited by the budget.
We had very low interest rates for over a decade, which made investments more profitable and thus there was always a ton of money to go around. The current financial downturn is the main reason of all the tech layoffs with no budget there are no jobs.
The upside of that: Even with all the talk of AI and stuff, once the interest rate goes down and investments go up, all the jobs will be back.
IDK. Tech companies are bringing in more revenue than ever. The trend seems to be companies reporting great revenue growth, then laying off shortly after, to which the investors seem to reward. In the past, layoffs would usually bring stock prices down, since they have less human capital to generate profit from.
Revenue and profit are different things. In times of low interest it’s growth at all costs. Investors love market share and growth, because they expect to make money when they sell their shares. That’s risky, but with low, no, or even negative interest it’s still worth the risk.
When interest goes up, parking money in safe, interest-based forms of investment becomes more interesting, so to compete companies also need to lower the risk. In a climate like that investors want to make money via dividends, so companies need to maximize dividends and to do so they need to maximize profits. Growth, market share and future plans become less relevant.
That’s what we are seeing right now.
The layoffs are usually due to a race to meet quarterly projections; when the projections slip, the fastest way to match them again is layoffs. And for companies to keep their stock prices up, quarterly numbers have to keep climbing.
Don’t wait, go straight into training in another field. Send out your resumes for a tech job, but start working on a backup.
That’s a good idea! And if I get rejected, at least I’ll know which new skills to focus on. In the meantime, I’ll try to figure out what other career besides tech would fit my education and skill set.
I have a master’s of science in atmospheric and oceanic science, which unfortunately is a very niche field. I made a miscalculation that my field would grow due to the increase in severe weather and negative affects from climate change.
Thanks for your advice :)
Globally, there’s going to be continued need for your skills.
Locally, it may vary.
Look globally. And good luck with finding your path. I have done the unemployment track and it is unpleasant.
Education, perhaps? I know it’s under attack as well. Maybe there are some opportunities though.
most stem degrees were pretty bad place, within the last 10 years. maybe if you going for bio to health pipeline you have some kind of career, or engineer(its a little bit iffy). i was CMB major, but if arnt in a lab before graduation , which by the way arnt very reluctant to show them selves for universities to volunteer in(like they dont announce it or pretty much full anyways leaving most people out of options, plus PI are very reluctant to even talk about it because they dont want to give it to students are going flake). and besides theres a huge preference for women over men in labs. by the way if you think going to grad school will help, you are just delaying your job finding for 2 years.
Seems NOAA was intentionally attacked by trump, so no surprise there. but other stems have been having problems for the last 10+years when job sites started making things much harder.
I feel this in my soul. I should’ve just went to law school.
I am probably older than you and just wrote the lsat to bail on tech. You can too!
Thanks for the encouragement homie.
Are you working for the government?
NOAA is run by the US government, yes.
Yes, I’m a contractor for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Sorry misread the parent comment. My dyslexic ass skipped “my”
Hmm. Uhoh.
I’m out on FMLA. Am I even going to have a job when I get back?
Oh, oh, my turn: I was fired on my first day of FMLA for a mental break caused by the ongoing discrimination at my workplace. Woohoo!
Edited to add: your job is protected for 12 months on FMLA. Your specific position is protected for 3 months after which they either have to give you a job, but not necessarily the same position you were in previously.
Oh. Well I’m not gonna be out that long.
I hope.
Uhoh. It really depends on how well I do and it is not well so far.
I hope the best for you, friend, speedy (yet comolete!) recovery and all.
Should I give up on finding a tech job? Surely my resume won’t stack against all these laid of people. I mean, it’s not bad, and I’ve scored great jobs before it was as stacked as it is today. Been unemployed for over a year and a half, haven’t looked too much.
It’s probably worth it to look into changing fields entirely, but honestly so many industries in the US are hurting right now, IDK which ones would even be a good option…
I just finished my associates in something called “industrial maintenance.” A degree that is a little bit of electrical, HVAC, Circuits, & machining. I have not been accepted to the 20 “entry” level jobs I found (also went to a career fair). And everywhere I look for related fields or anything people say there’s too many people in the business. It’s like every job field has “too many people”
As long as the market grows, it’s gonna take people to do the work implied by the growth.
When growth stops, jobs vanish. It’s like the market is the wind and jobs are the kinetic energy. When the wind stops blowing, the kinetic energy disappears.
I switched careers from logistics (office) to IT a couple of years ago. Logistics was notoriously badly paid and it was hard to find a job that’s not temporary for a year amd then they throw you out. Everybody kept telling us for years to go to IT, because that’s where the money and the non-temporary contracts are… But that’s only true for people who’ve worked there for decades.
It really does feel like no field is left where you can have a stable career. Accounting, sales, hospital, no matter where you ask, it’s temp contracts and shitty wages.
Shit, I’m sorry to hear that. Sounds like we’re all in the same boat…
Any chance you’re good at making guillotines? One can hope they become high demand.
Man, I’m not good at anything except making an occasionally funny snarky comment
Don’t underestimate that skill. Helps people make it through the day.
I once knew a guy that got a job by telling dick jokes on a forum. Got hired to work on some internal newsletter at Microsoft.
A younger version of me would ask for a referral, but now I know better about MS and have standards (from the unemployment line)
Do you mean you’re trying to get into tech? If yes then it’s a terrible time for that. No harm in trying but it is not the rapidly expanding field it once was, sucking up people from all other industries left and right…
Can someone with talent remake this gif by replacing the word “flames” with “leopards”?
Original link: https://media0.giphy.com/media/xQz492gZVUoms/giphy.gif
AI can do that.
I’m not familiar enough with it with respect to images I guess, so I didn’t know. But thanks for the tip, I’ll start playing around with it :)
