Didn't realize it was this bad
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I have been fortunate enough to hold two positions through this downturn after initially being cut. The tone on the inside of these organizations is absolutely wild - nothing against them because they can’t know, but it’s like a lot of them are in some kind of vault from Fallout where they don’t realize people are being eaten a few hundred paces away.
It is that bad, but one group still has absolutely no idea when it comes to being able to empathize with it. And that’s a really big problem when it comes to turning it around.
Remember this is when GDP was invented, then for previous years when there was only GNP, those were converted to GDP values very slyly in a way to "not freak people out" about how much worse it was than before.
Even Chevron is bound to layoff about 8,000 according to recent announcements, of course they can afford to take their time like few non-oil companies can, but it'll all be over for these dedicated employees of theirs before the end of 2026.
Same kind of bubbles there were back then, once millions have been set back generations, everyone else will largely think there are no lingering problems because they actually have jobs. There is some air of success from those who did luck out in the numbers game, because of the atmosphere where people know it's harder to get or keep a career going. So they highly value the job they have more than ever, but really can't afford very much sympathy for so many millions that can not be saved.
U-6 unemployment and labor force participation rates capture everyone.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
There are also many other places un and underemployed people show up, such as income quintiles, tax return statistics, and eventually, revenue and net income in publicly listed business’ financials.
>Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work.
If it gets to the point where very many of the unfortunates can not give a reason and have it register, they're out of there.
Always have been when it's government malfeasance.
There's got to be an easy out or the sentiment could get so negative that the people that still have money will stop spending too, which is even worse. Remember how that was? That's why we don't have anything like Bell Labs today.
With things like this I think it's straightforward to indicate you don't have the experience without actually stating that you don't.
But still in labor force participation rate.
The point is they are in the statistics, just look at the right statistics.
It seems reasonable that even U-6 excludes people who would not be working regardless of what is going on in the economy, as it is trying to be the broadest measure of the ratio of people working who would be working if there were agreeable economic conditions.
Mostly, they do not.
The times they did, their hard-nosed facade softened considerably when they realized that I was willing not only to drop everything immediately and leave them high-and-dry, but also to come after them for anything they might owe me. If more were willing to say no to being exploited, it probably wouldn't even get that far. People can make due, but you don't have a company if you don't have your employees. Messing with the "disposable" ones should immediately get even the most secure on the picket line, but it doesn't seem to (unless you're an actor or writer).
Taft-Hartley Act [1947] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act
It's been all downhill since. With a brief respite under the Biden Admin, passing Infrastructure Investment and Jobs (aka BIL), CHIPS Act, and Inflation Reduction Act all significantly boosted Labor and unions. Plus other efforts, like rescuing the pensions of ~2 million workers.
Work here is not perceived as an ultimate goal in life, and someone who is a hard worker is seen just as that: a hard worker. Not some kind of saint.
We like to works, this brings all kind of advantages in everyday life, but this is not at all driven by a puritan culture - rather like something you get to like because you meet people and so on.
We earn less, but also take less to the grave.
Granted, it was a PR blunder to call my own audience members ignorant..
To your point: as organizers we can viscerally confirm it's intractable to generate mass awareness. Corpos really got us all siloed.
[0] https://handmadecities.com/news/hms-2024-my-honest-take/
I saw a story around 2008 about fired bankers. They had trouble to buy food with their food stamps because they came to the shop with their expensive cars. It turns out they lost the house, were living in the car, and there was a market glut of expensive cars from all these other fired ex-rich people so even if they wanted they could not sell for a decent price. Besides, things had changed so fast under their feet, they didn't have time to sell the car yet.
Still working on filtering etc, pardon the work in progress.
When I'm hiring, I'm having to trudge through a TON of irrelevant resumes, and some super weird interviews with folks lying about their location or clearly relying on LLMs for answers to broad questions experienced folks with very general software knowledge should be able to talk about easily.
For getting hired, my resume acceptance rate was abysmal when I usually do pretty well, but when I actually get to talk to folks I can sense relief that I am who I say I am and have real experience. Offers are coming in at a range similar to 2021.
It's a very noisy atmosphere at the moment. I think folks experiencing the anxiety I felt at the start of my search should rest assured that there are real jobs for people who do real work. AI definitely isn't taking them. Getting face to face with the person who needs your skills is hard these days, but going through your network helps a lot and if that fails, persistence still works. If you need to hire, I've found going through my network to circumvent the applicant spam very effective for that side as well.
We're a community, and we can do a lot of good for ourselves and each other by connecting directly when our usual channels for placement are so unreliable these days.
This is part of the reason people were upset with the message that the economy was doing fine during the election.
Not everyone is in a world region where they can walk out of the door and there is a bunch of companies queueing up to take them in.
They, or rather Elon anyway, are also super pro-natalist. So not only are they not really interested in dealing with the growing disconnect between increasing per-capita productivity and the inability of the average citizen laborer to share in the wealth of that increased productivity, they are also advocating for significant population growth too. Number must always go UP!
Everyone go have 12 kids please. Ya'll got billions in the bank to take care of them in the face of a likely double whammy of increased inflation and decreased job prospects, right?
Well, there would be much fewer of glaziers around, and the panes of glass would also be priced much, much higher than they are today.
And it's not like being a glazier is a person's identity and an inborn destiny, is it? There ain't no e.g. limeburners any more yet we manage somehow.
What!? There’s probably some companies in tech where people are shuffling papers but there is a massive mismatch in jobs and skills. There is a labour shortage in many regions and skilled trades can make a killing.
Big difference between no one needs anything done, and no one needs what I do done.
Although the salaries at which the candidates are getting closed is not decreasing / almost the same.
That's exactly the advice that hiring managers themselves gave 10 years ago.
What about "oh, we've gotten this far, maybe we can work it out by having them work remotely from their country for a cheaper compensation than what we would have had to pay locally"?
From the applicant's point of view it costs very little to try this out.
There was a linkedin post floating around a few weeks ago that went in the other direction - a hiring manager who posted "remote" jobs, go the applicant hired, and then did a rug pull letting them know that it wasn't actually remote after all, they were required to come into the office. The hiring manager proudly bragged that most of the applicants just went along with it anyway and the comments were pointing out that it didn't seem like they'd have much choice at that point since they'd have already quit their other jobs.
If the employer doesn't post to job boards, they reduce the quantity of applications, but they increase those that found them "direct" and likely care more about the company.
It's not perfect, but the biggest issue right now is that both sides are typically trying to put as little effort in as possible.
Debatable. Willingness to put effort into a job application is not necessarily a good proxy for candidate quality. Indeed I would expect that the most desirable candidates can put the least effort in whereas those who are most willing to put up with crap are those with the fewest alternatives. I suppose for certain management structures someone having no better options could be seen as a plus - they'll stick around longer, put up with abuse, probably work for lower pay and less frequent raises - but I feel like they would still do better with appropriately skilled and compensated employees.
Apply first, check if you want to go to interview second.
"IT job market is still shrinking" - https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/15/it_job_market/
"Why does getting a job in tech suck right now?" - https://ryxcommar.com/2024/08/17/why-does-getting-a-job-in-t...
"The company got more than 100 resumes."
Thanks for proving me right!
Butter's now nearly twice as expensive. I'm paying twice as much to heat my house as I'd have paid 5 years ago. Bread went up over 30 percent during the war. Many product skyrocketed during covid and never came back down.
The CPI and other similar measures are government lies to keep the peace.
These are great examples, but I wonder if they're not actually too low.
What we really need is some kind of list (a basket, if you will) of things like this, and then periodically we can check with stores all over the country and ask them how much these things are.
Then we won't have to rely on the CPI bullshit and we'll know exactly how bad the true inflation really is!
@
Only take offers
If that doesn't work for you, then maybe it's a good time to do something different or better. It's an employer who must find your ad and hire you, not the other way around.
There are two kinds of companies: the ones which need someone, and the ones which need You. I advice to look closer for the latter.
I've tried in vain to find any reference to this being an expression in English.
Breaking out of the "I know a dude who knows a dude" circle is actually a lot harder than people think. I'm going to give it a crack though.
And if you're reading this and have some unsolveable problem to crack around the .NET, node, Unix space, hit me up. I may be the most stubborn man on the planet when it comes to hard problems.
In a society, everyone should do what they are good at, and help each other. This is why we invented companies. One that is good at marketing, one good at business management, one good at coding will work together. And hire other people to come to help them...
We are going back in circle here
Without marketing only the best of the best sell themselves.
> Even if they didn't, basic digital marketing isn't rocket science.
Yeah, but most programmers prefer to do 8h programming instead of 4h programming + 4h marketing, or even worse, now they have to do 6h programming + 4h marketing. Most programmers are bad at marketing, it's like painting and making music. There are people who can do everything, but it's not common.