Unemployment rates among tech workers between 20 and 30 years old jumped by 3 percentage points since the start of this year, said Goldman Sachs' Joseph Briggs.
I mean, a lot of people have lost their jobs at these companies due to gen AI, but it’s not because it’s replaced them. It’s because these companies are burning cash like crazy on gen AI even as it looses them billions upon billions every quarter. They’re letting people go to cover some of that cost and then spinning a positive narrative to shareholders about increased efficiency and productivity.
There is also a lot of still born projects and initiatives that are getting dropped because the executives now have an excuse to wash their hands of them without admitting to shareholders they made a bad call. Like Microsoft and their failed attempt to roll up the games industry.
And that over hiring means there are now a glut of experienced people desperate for jobs competing with inexperienced new grads.
I don’t chalk this up fully to AI.
The other aspect is hiring is a crapshoot right now, for the last 4 or so years almost all hiring I’ve seen has been from referrals, not resumes submitted.
I’ve been interviewing for a decade, the quality of candidates from even large corps like Google and Apple has turned to shit in the last 3/4 years. I’m talking candidates who can’t demonstrate basic coding skill in interviews but somehow worked at these companies for years and have advanced degrees.
I attribute that to mass over hiring too, where you would look at a resume and say “we can grow that person” but then clearly nobody bothered to teach them after they started.
There’s been a good amount of opportunity to grift an employer and in turn for functional teams to sideline those employees, since no one wants to be mean even to those employees, just put them aside, so long as the gravy train is here, why bother trying to ding someone for just being a bullshitter even if they never do work?
I mean, a lot of people have lost their jobs at these companies due to gen AI, but it’s not because it’s replaced them. It’s because these companies are burning cash like crazy on gen AI even as it looses them billions upon billions every quarter. They’re letting people go to cover some of that cost and then spinning a positive narrative to shareholders about increased efficiency and productivity.
There is also a lot of still born projects and initiatives that are getting dropped because the executives now have an excuse to wash their hands of them without admitting to shareholders they made a bad call. Like Microsoft and their failed attempt to roll up the games industry.
Yeah, lots of over hiring happened and this is the perfect cover for responding to that without admitting you screwed up.
And that over hiring means there are now a glut of experienced people desperate for jobs competing with inexperienced new grads.
I don’t chalk this up fully to AI.
The other aspect is hiring is a crapshoot right now, for the last 4 or so years almost all hiring I’ve seen has been from referrals, not resumes submitted.
I’ve been interviewing for a decade, the quality of candidates from even large corps like Google and Apple has turned to shit in the last 3/4 years. I’m talking candidates who can’t demonstrate basic coding skill in interviews but somehow worked at these companies for years and have advanced degrees.
I attribute that to mass over hiring too, where you would look at a resume and say “we can grow that person” but then clearly nobody bothered to teach them after they started.
There’s been a good amount of opportunity to grift an employer and in turn for functional teams to sideline those employees, since no one wants to be mean even to those employees, just put them aside, so long as the gravy train is here, why bother trying to ding someone for just being a bullshitter even if they never do work?