Why do you guys assume that this crisis will hit software development?
As far as I can see software development will be one of the fields least hit, possibly even benifiting, by the fallout of the Corona-virus.
As far as I can see software development will be one of the fields least hit, possibly even benifiting, by the fallout of the Corona-virus.
Fields that may grow: medical services and support, small-scale short-distance tourism (after 6-12 months), small scale web dev, military spending, government support and consultancy, space[2].
Basically a bimodal economy with a lot of money coming directly from government spending instead of via investors, but some small-scale green shoot opportunities for small local-interest businesses. The big corporates will survive, but with job losses and a general contraction. Medium-sized businesses and wannabe-unicorn gamble startups will be hit hardest. (Some will be ok. Many won't.)
[1] You might expect it to grow, but supply chains are going to be damaged and most people are going to have less money. Some people will have no money at all. Selected narrow sectors may buck the trend.
[2] Because there won't be a lot of other obvious places to invest. Also, everyone loves a bit of drama and optimism.
How many people in the US do you think take vacations every year?
10 million filed for unemployment benefits in the last 2 weeks. They wont' be champing at the bit to spend money on luxuries anytime soon.
Which is a good thing for the rest of, ironically and economically.
Not at all. Wall Street will be just fine, as it has been in previous economic crashes.
There are many ways that the crisis can hit software development. Investors are bleeding cash left and right and don't want to invest in anything right now. Products lose appeal. Companies don't want to pick up new software etc.. etc...
Most non-software businesses are about to take a wallop. A ban on travel, and ten million Americans filing for unemployment in two weeks will do that sort of thing.
edit: latest related post on the front page is about OYO furloughing thousands https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/08/indias-oyo-furloughs-thous...
I get the allure of the sky is falling but aren’t we missing just how privileged we are having an office job that easily can be done remotely?
All software jobs are affected by overall economic activity.
For example, I'm a software dev working in the niche sector of testing and certification of electronic payment systems. If economic activity goes down, then usage of payment systems goes down, so investments in those payment systems will go down, so our revenue will go down.
Anyone who has worked in industry awhile can also attest to the fact that more recent years the drive to make every company a "tech" company has lead to a large amount of unnecessary engineering hires. Companies are rushing to build out more and more stuff, but very little of that is really deriving any value.
Tech people were really very lucky in the last recession as Tech started to boom just as everything else started to really feel it.