'Employers hold the cards now' as power shifts in US jobs market
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I don't need a union, as I do not require an income, but my fellow human does, so onward. You only need majorities to arrive at outcomes.
seems despicable to invoke slavery for people nowadays who get paid as free people
The lack of unionization and mandatory PTO in the US is the most foreign concept imaginable.
for (web)dev it began with learn2code. that was the death knell.
> "At this point, I suspect we will see further moderation of wage growth"
with this being the goal.
i haven't had a pay rise in 4 years. and was told indirectly, since job market is bad they feel no need to be competitive.
Not getting a raise during that time is due to something other than "job market is bad" because it wasn't.
> 2021 - see above
> 2023 layoffs
> 2024 dead job market
> "great for software engineers"
you must be referring to yourself eh?
or anyone else who was paying attention and had a bit of drive to seize opportunity. early 2020 to late 2022 was a gold rush
"From the end of 2019 to 2023, tech companies scrambled to keep up with an explosion of consumer demand, as people stuck at home splurged on new computers and spent much more time online. Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, added a total of more than 900,000 jobs."
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/why-is-big-tech-still-...
2019 - 50% raise
2021 - 30% raise
2022 - layoff and eventual 67% pay cut
2023/2024 - applications everywhere, and "success" is getting a company to communicate a rejection.
Those bootcamp devs can replace your outsourced devs in India. But typically they have very little skill in thinking like an engineer, meaning they will utterly fail to implement any business logic and/or those software components that actually create value for the customer.
If you feel like learn2code graduates are competing with you, maybe that means it's time for you to level up yourself.
Code school devs 4+ years into their careers are as reliable as anyone else at the same experience level. I slightly prefer them with hiring, since succeeding with that approach shows a certain degree of flexibility and calculated risk taking.
The first code school cohorts are a decade or more into their careers now. Most of them didn't stick around but the ones who did are very solid. They are just the forerunners, the big swell of 2015-2018 graduates who stayed in the industry is just hitting that mid-senior level.
The article says "The days of the battle for talent are over."
but as a consultant I keep getting project requests by companies who couldn't find enough employees and are now willing to pay a premium for outside help that may enable then to still keep their deadlines.
If I was employed in some company in Central Europe, I would not bet my livelihood in any kind of job stability that is sold in the region by work council or regulations that can be easily hoped.
> The federal government should stop subsidizing pre-tax contributions to retirement savings accounts, two economists from opposing ideological camps argued in a research brief in January.
> Allowing people to shelter their retirement money from taxes is a policy that largely favors the well-heeled, they said. Congress could use that money, nearly $200 billion a year in lost tax dollars, to shore up the underfunded Social Security program.
People supporting these accounts will put forth "personal responsibility," but the evidence shows that most Americans can't afford to get exposure to the capital markets due to wage stagnation and whatnot, so it's theater vs a real solution. It works for the lucky ones, but most people aren't lucky. Good policy isn't built on luck.
We tried 401ks and IRAs because it was an easy way to shed pensions and keep those contributes for shareholders, leaving most folks to end up on paltry Social Security benefits. The experiment failed. If you don't see it, you're ignoring the data [2] [3], which I suppose is a choice.
[1] https://www.epi.org/publication/eroded-collective-bargaining...
In theory, no matter what the job market, companies will have the need for talent unavailable locally (of course the H1B is abused, but that's the stated purpose)
If you're implying that eliminating H1Bs would shoot wages upward, I don't believe that would happen.
If the local workforce doesn't feel like they can get ahead... they will grow disgruntled. Targeting Visa and other immigration programs is something that they perceive they can control more so than changing employer attitudes. The same pattern can be observed in Canada.
If I have to spend ~3500 per month to own a home within an hour of downtown. Then I need a take-home pay of 168k/year which is roughly 268k/year pre-tax. The number of positions which actually pay 268k/year is already small.
You need $124k/yr of after-tax money for food, transportation, and everything else?!
In a city where a condo costs 3500/month.. It's quite likely that you'll need 124k for everything else. A basic "fast" lunch in downtown Boston runs ~20 dollars these days (5000/yr), parking alone can burn ~10k/yr. If you opt to avoid cars for public transit then you need to add 2-4k to the mortgage payment.
As everyone else is facing the same housing math, prices rise. There is some lag to pricing as individuals avoid paying market rate for housing by buying 10+ years ago or locking in lower interest rates.
$124k is $12.4k/month in non-rent/mortgage costs.
The costs you describe come nowhere close to $124k. You've described maybe $10-14k in other costs, a large portion of which are discretionary luxuries. $100/week in eating out for lunch? That's a luxury. The alternative is to do what most people do: bring a lunch from home. Sandwiches and pasta are cheap: $100 of pasta will feed a person for months.
Somehow, non-techies manage to make things work on way less than $168k/year.
This is where you went wrong. 30% rule is pre-tax (gross income): https://www.chase.com/personal/banking/education/budgeting-s... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/10/always-use-the-30-30-3-rule-...
As someone who actually knows something about unions and their history, it literally never works that way. OP is correct. You can't make moves when you don't have power.
>Nobody wants to join a union during a hot market.
That's what has to change. I'm not saying it will change, but it's the only way. If your union is dependent on temporary conditions, it's weak. Weak unions are usually worse than no union at all. There are no shortcuts.
Which is to say, it may not be the historically best time to unionize, but it also might be the best time that we'll see in the future, and the most critical time to do so.
Perceived or actual self-control of your own destiny.
—-
I worked as a unionized employee for the first part of my career and all it did was severely limit my pay and growth trajectory. I’m not going back to that.
I spent a lot of time in school, but eventually dropped out and became a union electrician — which is a much different mindset than tech talent possesses. There is no better way to get trained [than being paid to learn as a union brother] but eventually the fiscal reward for exceptional electrician talent isn't incentivized enough to retain top talent.
A reason I began my journey out of IBEW [and started my own electric shop] was when union dues raised almost 2x because too many retirees needed increased healthcare for their spouses; combined with the whack healthcare fees for a bachelor [same montly deduction for one man VS family with a dozen kids].
As for techbros: I think there are too many "aces" that negotiate well for themselves and have no incentive to foster the brotherly spirit [whether aspie or asspie].
I personally think that unions are a solution to many problems, but come with a set of tradeoffs and genuine issues. There I think it is unhelpful (and why I used the word patronizing) to assume that people who are not on board with unionization must either be a "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" and/or the under the influence of some unseen force ("the industries").
This isn't the only reason that people aren't on board with unionization, but it is a common reason people, especially in America, aren't often on board with unionization in general (and has been noted as such for a long time, as mentioning Steinbeck implies). I think it particularly is applicable to mention as one of the biggest chicken-and-egg/catch-22 reasons that tech workers in general have many specific issues with the concept of unionization because it is often successful in strategies that break solidarity, because we tech workers still feel close to the VC seats of power and "recent/near" to massive wealth bubbles like the 90s dot-com boom.
I think pointing to systemic problems is helpful to trying to solve them. You can't solve problems you intentionally leave in a blindspot.
I think pointing to systemic problems is helpful to trying to solve them as well. I don't think starting from a solution that people don't want and assuming it is because they are misinformed or selfish is helpful.
> This isn't the only reason that people aren't on board with unionization, but it is a common reason people, especially in America, aren't often on board with unionization in general (and has been noted as such for a long time, as mentioning Steinbeck implies).
Actually the original context of the quote/misquote was directed at the "so-called Communists" he met, not Americans in general.
> The idea that people are opposed to unions because they are all concerned for the day they're gonna be rich
I never said all. I said it is a common problem that is hard to solve. I said it was one complication among others, a complicated reason not necessarily "the" reason.
I also never said opposed to unions. I said it was a perception problem that often causes people to even overlook unions as a possible solution. I said it was a solidarity problem when people do try to unionize that can drive wedges into groups and send some people "back to the sidelines".
> I don't think starting from a solution that people don't want
I didn't offer a solution. I offered a problem that I don't know the solution for. I think it is a twisty, complicated problem.
> because they are misinformed by pr and propaganda
I didn't use the word misinformation. Not all PR/propaganda is misinformation (or at least not just misinformation). I specifically gave several reasons why for tech workers especially it is not just propaganda but facts about recent history (90s dot-com boom) and current prosperity (this site is VC-adjacent and many of us that comment here, myself often included, think we're one good idea from VC funding).
Again, you seem to think I'm making some sort of moral judgment here and are trying to put words into my mouth that I think this is a moral failing of some sort. There is nothing wrong with believing things like I'm one good OKR from having real ownership in my employer and being lightly rich, or I'm one good idea away from getting a lot of VC money to do something cool as an owner and a founder. I have these beliefs at times, personally.
If I think there is a solution to this problem I know it isn't telling people with this mindset they are wrong and are morally failing: it's in growing the common ground between tech workers of all classes (all of the actual classes, the perceived classes, and the dreamed/preferred/hoped for classes). It's in crossing that divide between "I think this is a good idea, but I don't see why I need to be involved" to "everyone should be involved, and here's empathetic reasons to and here's why even if it doesn't help you personally today or even tomorrow it's not just a good idea but something that you should be actively involved in at every stage". I don't have good enough ideas of how we do that. It's a collective problem that needs collective solutions and I mentioned the problem to work the problem.
I don't know why you are trying to put words in my mouth that I'm offering some sort of solution just calling people names and blaming their mindset for their problems.
> Actually the original context of the quote/misquote was directed at the "so-called Communists" he met, not Americans in general.
Yes, but more specifically he pointed the finger at middle-class would-be-Communists that talked a good talk but never walked a good walk. They acted like they were in the game, but when the time came to put skin and real sweat into the game they were still on the sidelines. That thought Communism (and unions) were good ideas, but they engaged with it in only in salons/parties and as academic thought experiments.
I think it applies to a lot of Americans even given how specific the original context was. I think there are a lot of reasons it got paraphrased so strongly soon after it was written as a specific concept. But even if it doesn't apply that generally to all Americans, it certainly seems to apply to discussions like this one in places like HN where we talk about it a lot but aren't really actually trying to put skin into the game to work the problems and get caught up in ten dollar words like "ad hominem" and academic discussions about the "well, actually" specifics of important reading in the historical context and sometimes we believe that to be just as useful to working the problem.
If anything, it'd have to be a series of smaller, focused unions (say, infrastructure engineers, akin to pilots unions)