Also this only captures 6 industries, which is a narrow view of what would define "tech" these days.
Not to say that the job market isn't tough but this graph is a very narrow view
Can’t believe how many people are commenting without looking at what the chart means. We’ve lost 50k jobs last two years after decades of adding 100k+ every year including the pandemic highs of 300k+ per year. Total employment remains way above 2000s, 2008 and 2020 unlike the title suggests.
Lotta people in tech are going to struggle to find a job. That's the point.
Over 100K people graduate in CS/IT per year, and that doesn't even count people who come in to the industry from overseas or from other degree paths.
If number don't go up fast I guess people get scared.
This imbalance of supply and demand shifts power toward employers and it's hard not to feel the pressure even if you're not looking for a job right now.
I'm not even sure this chart tells the story of the title.
The health of the market is not a function of the total number of jobs alone, it's a function of the number of jobs and the number of people to fill them.
The number of total jobs going up year after year meant that there were increasing numbers of candidates, new people entering the field. If the job growth stops, then there still we be candidates coming in. There will also be the new hires from the last decade moving into increasingly senior roles, and there won't be space for them (unless you devalue the meaning of "senior" even more).
So the year over year change matters a lot. If it plateaus, or even declines slightly, it's more than enough to make a terrible market.
But, it just doesn’t hit the same way on X to say “We are back to late 2023-levels of tech employment” or “The losses in tech jobs over the last 18 months give back two months of hiring in 2022”.
Tech employees: 5.5m vs 9.9.
Software developers: 0.68m vs 3.2m.
Different ball game.