Hacker News Reader

Comment by pton_xd | Hacker News Reader

Hiring accelerated? Isn't that... the opposite of what's happening?

I don't know anyone whose having an easy time switching jobs right now. Where's all this "robust" hiring happening?

Here is the BLS hiring data, click the 12 month tab.

Most new hiring is in healthcare, government, and hospitality. Most other sectors, including tech, are flat or negative.

https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/employment-b...

You're being fooled by the top-level chart showing you absolute nubmers. It's just showing you which sectors are biggest, not which is growing the fastest. Click the "show table" to get relative values, which don't paint the same picture.

In fact government and healthcare grew above median, but not abnormally so. And at the same rate as other sectors like construction which don't really support the same kind of inferrence.

They weren't too far off. On a 12 month basis, Private Education and Healthcare Services, Leisure and Hospitality,Utilities, Construction, and Government sectors are the only five sectors of fourteen that are up over 1.5%, the only two white collar sectors of those being Private education/healthcare and government. Every other sector is below 1.6% growth. The Information sector is down 1.1 percent, professional and business services is essentially flat at a 0.9% increase, and financial services had only a 1.1% increase. Private education and healthcare grew at 4.2% over the last year, which is 323% of the median of 12 month sector growth of 1.3%. Government at 2.7% is 207% of the median.

Right, but if "2x median" reflects a range between 1.0 and 3.0% growth, is it really that insightful to call out specific sectors? There are always (mild) winners and losers in every distribution.

Note also that population growth in the US is something like 0.3% for the past few years, so calling 0.9% jobs growth "flat" seems a bit spun?

I mean, we both know what's going on here: there's a desire on the part of multiple posters to try to deny these numbers are good numbers, probably for political reasons. And I guess fingering "government" and "doctors" seems like an easy way to win that argument (i.e. "real people's jobs actually bad"). But that's just incorrect per the numbers. "Real people" are doing well too.

The big question for us to be able to figure anything out based on this: what did that chart look like in other years?

Healthcare and government are enormous slices of the economy. I'd expect them to be at or near the top of hiring much of the time. IDK about hospitality.

I was able to change careers because I have a security clearance and security certifications. Get certifications, preferably management certs, and pimp out your resume with the added credentials.

Software developers spent the last 15 years finding easy employment with inflated wages all of which resulted in a lot of unearned entitlement. The gravy train is over. Now you have to actually compete for employment, but I promise its there. Bear these to heart:

* Easy to hire means easy to fire.

* Always prefer that which has a higher barrier of entry

The tech industry is not the whole world.

Banks, insurance companies, etc are all laying off. UPS just let go of 12k people. Tyson foods is laying off 4k.

Again, where's all the robust hiring happening?

+112,000 Education and health

+74,000 Business services

+45,200 Retail

+36,000 Government

+23,000 Manufacturing

+11,000 Leisure and hospitality

+11,000 Construction

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/02/business/jobs-report...

Seems like sectors that were hit hard during COVID are recovering, while sectors that boomed during COVID (tech, remote-able work) are reverting to the mean.

If that's what's happening it seems pretty predictable.

Tech (at least with current VC-led business models) runs on low interest rates too, so the rate increases have hit tech growth pretty hard.

This checks out with my anecdata...

My wife, a licensed teacher in our state, was switching jobs from one school district to another, and watching her go through that process was interesting...

The interview process for any kind of school administrative position consisted of multiple rounds of interviews.

The interview process for a teaching position consisted of them confirming that my wife had a pulse.

You’re currently being downvoted, I assume because those are monthly numbers as opposed to annual numbers.

> because those are monthly numbers as opposed to annual numbers.

Well, this is in response to an article about January's numbers. Hence, posting January's numbers.

That article says that "after today’s revisions, employers added more than 3 million jobs in 2023. That makes it the best year for job growth since 1999."

In what world was 2023 the best year for job growth?

It's important to remember we're at the start of an election cycle. Every time there's a Democratic president, the Repulicans start the drum beat of "the economy is ailing" and they ramp it up as the next election comes close. Americans have trusted Republicans more on the economy since Reagan took over from Carter. It's their main PR plan, tell Americans the economy is is going to die if they pull the wrong lever. Dems have similar PR bullshit, just on different topics.

So the answer to your question: in this world. Job growth in absolute numbers has been strong now for over a decade (2020 being an abberation of course) and remains so. These are numbers collected by bi-partisan and non-partisan organizations, and they're fairly consistent in their methods. Economists don't believe who is in the White House has much to do with it almost all of the time, but most people do and it feeds their anxiety.

It is a rough time in the tech industry, and the first in many decades, so I'd not be surprised if many people here share your view, but for the economy as a whole, it's still tough out there to hire. A lot more people work in restaurants and factories than tech, and ask anyone in those industries how it's going.

I'm not sure what you mean? Are you saying the numbers are wrong?

Anyways, you asked where the hiring was -- and I found an answer to that question.

The tech industry is not the whole world.

What makes you think it wasn't? Again, tech is not the whole world. I mean, 2023 was essentially late covid recovery; you'd _expect_ it to be _pretty_ good.

What numbers are YOU using?

The propaganda industry is booming.

It's been rough for over a year. But, I've had more recruiters reach out this month than the past few combined.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com