Unless, all you read all day is the same crap that everyone else reads all day, then yes, you would be led to beleive that 'the end is nigh' for software engineers.
Great site tracking all the layoffs: https://www.trueup.io/layoffs
Edit: to clarify; I'm mostly advocating people look at upgrading via specialty into areas where there's clear demand, not trying to undermine marcinzm's point.
Are you paying market rate? What roles were you hiring for? How many top quality candidates applied for your position?
I run a very small startup, and I too was hiring, albeit prior to this market correction. Even then, there was a plethora of candidates, and while most did not meet the hiring bar, one did.
I personally went from 5-10 recruiter pings per week (our team just closed $___m and we need a founding iOS engineer!) to 1-2. The sky isn't falling, you're right, but I can definitely still see how this round of layoffs would be affecting a current job seeker.
There is still hiring happening between US Thanksgiving and the New Year but so many people are off (and some companies have time-off mandates!) that all internal processes slow to a crawl.
> As it turns out. Humans love meeting other humans in real live way more than meeting people online.
That's one way of putting it.
But the economic implications is way more severe. This reasoning about constant economic growth has had the world fooled for way too long.