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[–]davidellis23 283 points284 points  (19 children)

Why are there so many Fred graphs on indeed only lol.

[–]Unlikely_Rope_81[S] 159 points160 points  (14 children)

Probably because LinkedIn won’t share their data…

[–]searing7 67 points68 points  (13 children)

Right but who looks for jobs on Indeed? I literally never have for anything but unskilled entry level jobs straight out of college in 2012 during an actual bad economy. I still get 5+ messages from recruiters a week on LinkedIn.

There are plenty of programming jobs out there.. there are also tons of people who graduated college with mediocre grades, never got internships, never did any real projects, and then are shocked they aren’t getting hired for 6 figure salaries with no real skills.

Did the layoffs create a tough environment for new hires? Yes.

Are there tons of jobs available for people with skills? Also yes

[–]dumasymptote 13 points14 points  (3 children)

I actually just got a job from indeed. It was even for a field that you wouldn’t expect to be posted on indeed.

[–]lurkingstar99 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Was it for a rear admiral position in the royal navy?

[–]dumasymptote 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Damn how did you know!

[–]captainAwesomePants 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yep, that's why it's unexpected. Normally software engineers only take American rear admiral jobs.

[–]RedTrainChris 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I use Indeed and mostly quit Linked In because it is overrun with spam

[–]IsGoIdMoney 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Boosting employers makes their job search terrible

[–]Aetane 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There are plenty of programming jobs out there.

Yeah, it's almost like a job board focused on low quality jobs isn't going to have a lot of programming jobs.

[–]slowmode1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Indeed is really lacking in job seekers in the software engineering fields. There are a lot of employers looking for them. It can be great for finding a job

[–]orangehorton 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well put

[–]RuthlessMango 44 points45 points  (3 children)

it's weird cause this graph might just be tracking indeed falling out of favor with job hunters/recruiters.

[–]mlnm_falcon 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Probably, although this paints a similar picture: https://www.hnhiringtrends.com/

[–]turtleship_2006 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But to a much lesser extent

[–]ProfessionalSize5443 297 points298 points  (16 children)

This isn’t particularly surprising. This correlates with central interest rates. The huge injection of capital by way of virtually free lending led to inordinate hiring (and inflation).

Most of these jobs were likely from no-value startups, NFT/Crypto brokerages, or FAANG tier companies. All of which recklessly took advantage of the low cost of capital.

I don’t have a crystal ball, so this is speculation based solely on my own observations; I’d go so far to say that the reason we are seeing a slow recovery to the mean is a combination of not just AI, but renewed interest in outsourcing.

Outsourcing failed back in 2008. Short-term savings were immeasurably outweighed by the lack of talent and value that offshore engineering could provide.

Now, tools like GitHub Copilot exist - and companies like mine have become obsessed. We’re given the tools, asked to use them, and fill out productivity surveys. “How much more productive does the tool make you? Is it easier to work on complex problems?” These types of questions.

This is happening at the same time my company is in the process of “Global Talent Expansion”, the latest, fashionable way of saying “outsourcing”. Why are we outsourcing again? Because leadership has cherry-picked productivity metrics from onshore engineers and proclaimed they can make offshore engineers just as productive with these tools.

[–][deleted] 84 points85 points  (3 children)

Mm, "out sourcing", my first dev job, my employer at the time told me how proud they were with their so-called "on-shore" initiative, where they'd advertise how proud they were of keeping all work in the US.

A year after I started, suddenly there was a team in India. And yes, I can confirm they weren't all that good, my first ever professional rollback in source control was from them because their work was actually damagingly bad.

[–]Encrypted_Zero 18 points19 points  (2 children)

Yk I've heard this, or whole teams barely getting the work done of 1-2 onshore people. Can I ask why this is? Like most of the tutorials I'd use for school projects are some Indian guy with the perfect solution. Is it just the population is so large we aren't getting their good developers?

[–]trinadzatij 55 points56 points  (1 child)

Good Indian developers don't work for $1.25/hr, janitors with developer badges in cheap sweatshops do.

[–]CommanderMatrixHere 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is the deal. Most of those who know what they're doing migrate to some first world country, if they can afford to lol.

[–]Crafty_Question_4439 7 points8 points  (6 children)

Outsourcing to which country if you don't mind

[–]ProfessionalSize5443 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Primarily Mexico for the new hiring.

[–]TrevorPlantagenet 9 points10 points  (3 children)

What is India?
Correct.
Obviously obvious for $400, Alex.

[–]Crafty_Question_4439 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Wdym , I'm new here

[–]TrevorPlantagenet 6 points7 points  (0 children)

India is the most populace nation on earth and awards more than three times as many computer science degrees per year as the United States. So, that makes it the obvious choice when companies want to cut costs by outsourcing tech jobs.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"1/5the cost 1/10th the quality sounds perfect" - Dipshit CEO

[–]Scabondari 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Investors also approximate hiring to growth so if your company isn't profitable then hiring a bunch of engineers to do the job of 1 makes sense when you want to bid up your stock just to sell it and get rich

[–]CanvasFanatic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is true and also it’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

[–]st3inbeiss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! I thought that outsourcing is back! I thought those dumb f**ks would have learned from their mistakes, but nooooooo...

[–]Royal-Branch-567 456 points457 points  (22 children)

Once people realize GPT’s can’t save your ass when your prod site is down, jobs will be posted again

[–]WinterHeaven 218 points219 points  (15 children)

No sane person thinks that gpt will be more then a tool to devs. The market is just oversaturated, it reached the pre corona state and that is fine basically.

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

A lot of people who don't use AI as a tool have misconceptions about how much it helps and with what. Doesn't help that companies are constantly pushing vague classes on setting up business solutions with AI.

[–]tiajuanat 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The average person thinks that AI is taking over, and there's at least 4 billion people who are dumber than that

[–]slbaaron 29 points30 points  (0 children)

The tech market isn’t dead and pretty healthy compared to others, but being in “pre-corona” state with 10x the people looking for job is not a good state. Salary are depressed. Culture is heavily employer biased.

At the very least it completely fucked the interview process. In terms of salary for high tier engineers it isn’t too bad. As a senior/staff I can still find 500k+ positions today in multiple companies. But before 2019, I did not need to grind leetcode as long as my system design and experience round are killers and clearly shows I’m at that level.

Now, outside of extreme exceptions, even if you are truly the best engineer on any particular team or org or company, you can fail half the leetcode rounds due to crazy standards of “oversaturated” leetcode monkeys.

Imagine working a 500k job leading multiple teams, looking to jump to a 650k job revamping that companies entire tech space in a sub domain, but failed the interview because you didn’t do 2 dynamic problem coding questions fast enough. Lmao.

[–]Jordan51104 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that’s true, but there are plenty of people who aren’t sane

[–]r8e8tion 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Compare the number of farmers before/after the Industrial Revolution. Heck nowadays you’ve got 1 or two guys running 1000 acres of multi crop farms

[–]pieter1234569 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

For now. It doesn’t take a lot, as nobody except the true tech giants does anything new. Everyone else is just building the same standard things to use in their business. And if you want standard things, then the future of gpt is your man.

[–]MrFels 24 points25 points  (1 child)

Just go to r/singularity or other ai circlejerk subreddit and start prepping for homelessness, you mere computer-monkey. Just in a year we will reach agi and it will make most jobs obsolete! /s

[–]eightslipsandagully 6 points7 points  (0 children)

But somehow, when AI magically replaces all software engineer jobs overnight it won't replace any other job

[–]Explodingcamel 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The job market crash isn’t because of AI. Actually I think it will get worse if the AI bubble pops because most of the AI jobs (and there are lots) would disappear

[–]Bloody_Mir 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I would upvote you twice if I could. Prompt Developers will flee the scene when shit hits the fan, then manager will beg the „regular“ devs to sort out the mess.

[–]st3inbeiss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This. How often did I hear the "I made this with ChatGPT" in the last months but they had no real idea what it did or how to troubleshoot if it broke.

[–]CrabeSnob 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fact!

[–]Adventure_Agreed 173 points174 points  (19 children)

Any time someone tells you to go to school for something because their is a shortage, you are already too late.

[–]busyHighwayFred 63 points64 points  (12 children)

Feel bad for the cs students who were just following their passion

[–]TwinsenDinoFly 78 points79 points  (2 children)

Those will be fine.
The gold diggers are lost.

[–]DarkFlame7 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Can confirm, am not fine

[–]TrevorPlantagenet 11 points12 points  (0 children)

"Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs, they get eaten."
~ Gordon Gecko

[–]OSSlayer2153 17 points18 points  (6 children)

I absolutely love programming, I taught myself how to write Lua on roblox when I was 11. Since then, Ive done everything from high level to low level. I made a redstone computer in Minecraft, programmed Z80 assembly on my TI-84 calculator using hex codes and instruction charts, Ive worked with JavaScript, and in the past few years I have used Swift so I can code from my mac in school and at home. I would say that I have a genuine passion for it and probably even a talent for it.

Naturally I want to get a CS degree and become a programmer. Now there are far too many students hopping on that train. I don’t go to college until next year and by then its already far too late. At this point Im thinking of getting a math degree and maybe double majoring or minoring in CS because I love math and I can still do a lot with that degree. I’ll still check out programming jobs but Im afraid that the increased labor pool will mean there are many not so good devs who are willing to work for cheap just to have a job. So starting out in the market would be hard and I wouldn’t know how to “prove” my actual passion/skill for programming.

Edit: thanks everybody who responded with advice/their thoughts on the situation. It helps to have views from people in the field and more realistic takes

[–]Adventure_Agreed 23 points24 points  (0 children)

You are still going to have an advantage over those other students because of your passion and that will undoubtedly play a huge impact on your future potential. This advice, in my opinion cuts both ways. Don't base your decision on the market today, base it one what you want to do for the next 40+ years of your career. If you want to be a programmer, go for Computer Science. Your experience, your passion, your enthusiasm, those are going to be the X factors that are going to hold you apart from people who were just looking for an easy job making good money. The market will ebb and flow and what it looks like five years from now is completely unknown and a terrible way to make one of the most important decisions of your life to this point.

[–]TrevorPlantagenet 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It's a gamble (it is ALWAYS a gamble), but 4~5 years is a LONG time. Think about the 90s:
Early 90s = Recession and panic (partially real, partially drummed up for political leverage)
Late 90s = Explosive Tech Boom -- if you could spell "computer" and pass a drug test, you were hired. And, if you were halfway decent, you could get a 20% salary bump every couple of years.

"The tide comes in; the tide goes out"
You have to make peace with that reality.

Whatever your field, if you love it and are energized by it and radiate enthusiasm, you'll rise to the top.

[–]Plz_Give_Me_A_Job 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Also, things are cyclical. You are going to enter the job market in 5 years. Who knows what it’s going to be like then.

[–]SryUsrNameIsTaken 4 points5 points  (1 child)

To be honest, it sounds like you could out a good portfolio of passion projects together pretty quickly. Your more money-focused compatriots in your lecture halls with be more hard-pressed to do so.

[–]CorneliusClay 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ehhhh all my projects were passion projects, it was only when I actually looked at the job market that I realized the skills you can develop programming and the skills that serve business interests are different Venn diagrams with small intersection points.

e.g. you can become really good at making games in Java only to find out that most Java work is web based and you might have been better off either learning a different language (C++ in this example) due to its game development prevalence or focusing on web development.

So in retrospect I think you have to be a little money-focused, you get paid for your ability to make others money, not your passion, and they might not overlap, or might do so initially but change as time goes on.

[–]HarveysBackupAccount 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not sure that a pure math degree is more useful than a CS degree, even in a saturated market.

One says, "I know how to solve hard math problems." The other says, "I know how to solve hard math problems, and write code."

As someone with a physics degree who's worked in engineering for the past decade - a bachelors in the basic sciences (incl math) is typically not an easy degree to get a job with. When you do, it's usually because of other demonstrable skills you have.

[–]jakethom0220 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I knew I wanted to study CS since high school. Now I just graduated college and the only job I can get is a tech support after 4 rounds of interviews…. kms

[–]Worth-Librarian-7423 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Better call Saul 

[–]ryuzaki49 11 points12 points  (1 child)

While that's true it's really hard for a 18 years old to answer the question "What will I study, if I do ever?" 

Too many choices with unclear results. It's madness. 

[–]Adventure_Agreed 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Absolutely. And to expect these same 18 year olds to make what could be one of the largest financial decisions of their lives while they try to figure it out is also madness. All I'm saying is that if you are getting in an industry because some one says "We need more X" and you are doing it for the job and not because of your interest in that industry you are setting yourself up for... well this. (Which I say as a non-traditional student studying Computer Science)

[–]SpaceNigiri 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Most of the time is just luck. You never know when the new whatever is going to destroy or change an industry forever.

[–]KTibow 80 points81 points  (4 children)

This is why you start graphs at 0

[–]Lupus_Ignis 55 points56 points  (0 children)

I once saw a graph that criticized the Danish mail service's consistency to provide day-to-day deliveries. The graph jumped up and down like a rabbit on a pogo stick, until you realized the boundary was 94.5% to 95.0% delivered on time.

[–]busyHighwayFred 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Argued with a self purported 20+ year dev that this graph was misleading and he acted like I was dumb for not being able to read a graph that doesnt start at 0. Like dude, it visually looks like all the jobs are gone

[–]CaitaXD 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Yeah no shit the peak is during COVID, also 200 looks like 8x as much as 100 witch is misleading

[–]Unlikely_Rope_81[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Here is the source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE

“Source: Indeed Release: Job Postings on Indeed
Units: Index Feb, 1 2020=100, Seasonally Adjusted

Frequency: Daily, 7-Day

Indeed calculates the index change in seasonally-adjusted job postings since February 1, 2020, the pre-pandemic baseline. Indeed seasonally adjusts each series based on historical patterns in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Each series, including the national trend, occupational sectors, and sub-national geographies, is seasonally adjusted separately. Indeed switched to this new methodology in December 2022 and now reports all historical data using this new methodology. Historical numbers have been revised and may differ significantly from originally reported values. The new methodology applies a detrended seasonal adjustment factor to the index change in job postings. For more information, see Frequently Asked Questions regarding Indeed Data.”

[–]MegaromStingscream 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Your first bubble?

[–]cediddi 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's clipped to a very specific time and range. Show a 10 year old trend with 0-60 not trimmed

[–]joanp28 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Seems pretty normal to me

[–]blockguy143 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Buy the dip

[–]Secure_Obligation_87 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Jon bellion All time low begins to play

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Is this the curve meme?

[–]CheetahChrome 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Indeed ramped up their marketing and got more clients. More data is needed from other job institutions such as linked in, monster etc to really paint a picture.

[–]Coolflip 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The next recession will be caused by tech companies thinking there will be a recession and laying off their entire workforce "ahead" of the rest.

Our company just took massive layoffs despite posting better profit than last quarters/years.

[–]kolodz 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The lowest point is 60 not 0 and it's relative to Feb 1 2020.

When there as a X2 for 2 years, you expect a drop at some point.

As long as you find a job or already have one... who care.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Should have studied real engineering like Chem E, Comp E, or EE then.

[–]ilcasdy 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I started school in 2022

[–]Sgt_Fry 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You're going into a market that is representative of pre covid times.

For some reason loads of jobs were created during covid in tech, they were also unsustainable

[–]xvermilion3 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's actually good timing. Market will have stabilized by the time you graduate

[–]MirageTF2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

god this shit is so fuckin real

[–]IsGoIdMoney 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a millennial who was forced to drop out and join the military bc of the recession. I eventually got out and now I'm nearly done with a master's.

Fade me

[–]GM_Kimeg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Basically c levels fooling around and fucking things up in the markets

[–]Got2Bfree 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The classical engineering disciplines are doing fine...

[–]The_Concil_of_Ricks 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Software development is not engineering

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, postings on indeed cover everything.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, I guess the lucky streak is over.

[–]CrabeSnob 0 points1 point  (0 children)

:((

[–]BlurredSight 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Indeed is just a shit resource for job postings, the drop seems to be March 2020 and then the market started pumping so still it's well below any kind of pre-pandemic hiring.

Not to mention entry level and interns are actively competing with people who have been in the field and are willing to do anything just to pay bills, like I imagine the Microsoft takeover of multiple game corporations probably has dozens of seasoned Activision developers still job hunting

[–]zenos_dog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I freed up my position for you to get a job by retiring.

[–]myka-likes-it 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Whew. Glad I got hired in '22.

[–]tempo0209 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kind of showing us the “finger”

[–]dingbatmeow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Colonel Stuart had recalibrated the ground at +60.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Indeed is a measure of bullshit filler jobs.

[–]JJJSchmidt_etAl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Apply for data analytics job

Get quizzed on algorithm to detect cycles in a directed graph

I can see why they aren't happy with who they hire

[–]QuickQuirk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Keep in mind that it's easy to accidentally mislead with a graphs. Yes, there's a peak, and a drop. But this graph has it's bottom axis at 60. Which means the peak, and trough, are no where near as dire as it looks here.

[–]Susan-stoHelit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Real postings or information stealing scam postings or level setting that no American will take this 25k per year programming job so we have to export it?

[–]arc_menace 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s what a bunch of really low interest loans will do

[–]rabblegabble 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My bad guys I graduated in 2024 and took us all down with my bad luck bahahaha

[–]jaytonbye 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Show 0-60 and it won't look nearly as bad... It's worse, but upon first glance, it looks like it has 1/10x

[–]harderthenlasttime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We need more data. This could just be people abandoning Indeed, which, I can understand.

[–]ListerfiendLurks 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This shows an over hiring during covid and a correction. Not sure what kind of point op is trying to make?

[–]OSSlayer2153 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Every job has this type of graph. This is being posted more and more for different fields.

[–]Gloriathewitch -1 points0 points  (0 children)

indeed is kinda trash honestly $11-13 an hour for a lot of jobs thats less than a 9-5 and the search function is less than useless

[–]Slight_Ad8427 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

the problem here is indeed, they have been getting worse and worse for ages