Reply to: State of the Market

[edison]

French, UK and US election uncertainty not helping.

German elections next year too.

Portuguese finished in March and Netherlands did not have a fully functioning government until today.

Doesn't seem much uncertainty about the UK election. Labour to win big, just a question of how big.

[agentzero]

That chart has a Farage-esque level of fable about it.
It starts in 2020, but your comments talk about “pre Covid levels”

Do you think we are all as gullible as you? It’s like you’ve taken the worst of Scooter and combined it with the far-right to make false assertions.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE

The website won't allow data prior to Feb 1st 2020.

[sreed]

My client (mid sized FS firm) is at the early stages of (yet another) reorg triggered by the firing/resignation of their c-suite Tech guy.

Apparently their parent co has given them a payroll reduction target and (at least according to my manager) the new king of the hill is considering using more contractors instead of perm hires. To balance that out he also said that the consultants they've appointed have reported that their salary scales and rates in the delivery teams are 'too high', whatever that means.

They've been trying to get rid of day-rate contractors (I'm now on a PAYE FTC until Christmas) outside super specialist short-term roles so it'll be interesting to see how this pans out...

[dsc]

Bench time here I come...was told I'm not getting extended due to re-org and cost cutting. Mental as there's heaps of work coming and the current team is already stretched. No worries though as they have a few scrum masters so I'm sure they will manage...fecking bean counters. Anyways, at least timing is good for a holiday.

[Bluenose]

French, UK and US election uncertainty not helping.

German elections next year too.

Portuguese finished in March and Netherlands did not have a fully functioning government until today.

[SchumiStars]

Looks like another dead week for job applications. Going cycling.

FFS, it's been 12mths. How can it be so tulip.

[coolhandluke]

That chart has a Farage-esque level of fable about it.
It starts in 2020, but your comments talk about “pre Covid levels”

Do you think we are all as gullible as you? It’s like you’ve taken the worst of Scooter and combined it with the far-right to make false assertions.

Whilst IT companies in the USA have been laying people off, most have been in tulip roles such as HR & Diversity etc. From what I saw they didn't make a large number of development staff redundant.

[willendure]

My take away from these employment graphs and employment figures generally is that things are ok employment-wise in the economy for now. There was no great need for the ECB to cut rates recently, and it was only a small cut. Not enough to make interest rates in the USA greatly more attractively and therefore to increase capital flows in that direction. Just pushes the expected rate cut out even further - won't happen till its too late anyway as always.

[Fraidycat]

The graph starts in May 2020, not "the start of 2020", and you previously claimed it showed "covid lows", now you are saying that the graph is showing "before covid hit". It doesn't show (in any measured sense) what the "pre-covid levels were" that you referred to.

The graph says on the Y Axis that it starts from Feb 1st 2020 and is using that as the basis for the value 100.

[edison]

I guess, the idea is, like a lot of the public sector, the NHS is recession proof and doesn't do IT layoffs when there are slumps in the private sector.

I don't think that's true for all the public and not for profit sectors. Local government is different as a significant proportion of their funding comes from central government but this has fallen substantially in real terms. One council I've worked with on and off for 20 years has gone through about six restructurings and downsizing of the IT function. It's about 2/3 the size is was pre-austerity era.

Central government probably varies by department. Some have been ringfenced from cuts over the years leaving others to bear a disproportionate amount of cuts.

[sreed]

Chart from US federal website, shows the number of Developer job postings is almost at covid lows, similar, maybe even worse to what we are seeing in the UK.

Also shows there was massive over hiring post covid compared to the hiring levels pre covid. Which is why subsequent layoffs were so large at the US tech companies and that hit us here in the UK as well. Last year the UK market was full of with people from the likes of Facebook and Google who had been laid off.

At least as per ONS seasonally adjusted vacancies data, We are most definitely not at Covid lows. Here’s a chart I pulled from 2016-2024 on all the sectors that could be IT/IT-related and the backbone (finance and insurance). The blue line being ‘Information & Communication’ which is the closest I could get to IT.

You can argue about the methodology, how they collect data, what they’re looking at etc, but according to that vacancy levels in I&C are no worse than they were at different times in 2016, 2017, 2019, and definitely well off the Covid lows in mid 2020.

There are definitely a LOT more highly-incentivised people competing for IT jobs in 2024 compared to the pre-Covid era but that’s a different story.

[WTFH]

It shows job US opening for developers in 2021 were more than double the level at the start of 2020, before Covid hit..

The graph starts in May 2020, not "the start of 2020", and you previously claimed it showed "covid lows", now you are saying that the graph is showing "before covid hit". It doesn't show (in any measured sense) what the "pre-covid levels were" that you referred to.

It may as well be a chart showing business confidence in US presidents, Biden gets voted in, business confidence improves, but now as it looks less likely that 45 will serve jail time and that many people are blinded by his word salads, so he might get another presidency, then business confidence is crumbling.

[Ketto]

I guess, the idea is, like a lot of the public sector, the NHS is recession proof and doesn't do IT layoffs when there are slumps in the private sector.

I found it a depressing sector to work in (not as bad as local authorities, but up there). Often very worthy and motivating work, but very difficult to get things done with so much negativity and endless silly projects doomed to fail from the start. Managers failing time and time again over the years and getting repeated promotions. Lost count of the number of paperless initiatives i’ve seen come and go over the years. Did 12 years 2004-2016 before ditching it for private sector. Dipped my toe back in during the start of covid panic in 2020, I lasted 5 months.

[Fraidycat]

That chart has a Farage-esque level of fable about it.
It starts in 2020, but your comments talk about “pre Covid levels”

Do you think we are all as gullible as you? It’s like you’ve taken the worst of Scooter and combined it with the far-right to make false assertions.

Not sure what you point is, the Chart is from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) website.

It shows job US opening for developers in 2021 were more than double the level at the start of 2020, before Covid hit.

This was a massive hiring bubble in the US Tech sector.

The bubble popped in mid 2022, and US tech giants then did big layoffs because they over hired so much in 2021, the UK was also caught in that cross fire last year.

A client told me about the high number of CVs they were getting from ex Facebook and Google employees here in the UK.

[WTFH]

Chart from US federal website, shows the number of Developer job postings is almost at covid lows, similar, maybe even worse to what we are seeing in the UK.

Also shows there was massive over hiring post covid compared to the hiring levels pre covid. Which is why subsequent layoffs were so large at the US tech companies and that hit us here in the UK as well. Last year the UK market was full of with people from the likes of Facebook and Google who had been laid off.

That chart has a Farage-esque level of fable about it.
It starts in 2020, but your comments talk about “pre Covid levels”

Do you think we are all as gullible as you? It’s like you’ve taken the worst of Scooter and combined it with the far-right to make false assertions.