You can't look at total layoffs. If you really want what this means look at how many engineers were laid off. I know some were in Meta's layoffs but how many? 100? 1000? 5000? Each of those numbers means something different.

It's still incredibly expensive and hard to hire and retain engineers. If that remains true then this is really a blip. It won't really be the "end of an era" unless there is a glut of engineers in the market. This happened in 2000. In the UK, the unemployment rate for engineers was huge (>35% IIRC) and that excluded those who had left the industry.

Another interesting question is what will the collapse in share prices to do hiring and retention since equity is a massive (typically >50%) part of total compensation. Those who got hired last year in particular have seen a huge amount of paper value disappear.