Data showing the 2024 tech job market is far stronger than 2023
I'll start with my back-of-the-napkin summary of the 2023 - 2024 (so far) comparison stats below:
- There are 29.5% more tech job openings today than the low in March '23 (and the positive trend has been largely steady)
- The YoY number of average daily tech layoffs has declined by roughly 20%
The following data was gathered from the two most comprehensive sources out there: TrueUp.io and Layoffs.fyi.
Note: the difference in total numbers is due to TrueUp's much larger dataset (it tracks more startups & non-US markets). They both still show a nice improvement, e.g. the decline in average daily layoffs is around 24% on TrueUp and 14% on Layoffs.fyi.
TrueUp.io
- There are approximately 211K open tech jobs today; there were 165K last March. That said, the peak was 478K in April '22.
- In 2023, there were approximately 429K people laid off by 2K tech companies (an average of 1,175 people/day)
- So far this year, there have been approximately 117K people laid off by 539 tech companies (an average of 894 people/day)
Layoffs.fyi
- In 2023, there were approximately 263K people laid off by 1,200 tech companies (an average of 721 people/day)
- So far this year, there have been approximately 81K people laid off by 287 tech companies (an average of 619 people/day)
If it doesn't feel like it's improving, please hang in there. No market moves in a straight line...but at least the bumpy ride appears to be on the right track! I do a lot of coffee chats with new grads, recruiters, job seekers What I find is that general development is seen as less desirable compared to the boom of 2021. Due to AI, lots of supply on the market, outsourcing, etc. It's just seen as a commodity. People recognize they want to specialize into more technical areas. Of course there's AI/ML. But I also see this in high-performance ops, native programming (ie Rust, etc), search/recommendations/RAG, and the like. So like past recessions, the old jobs don't entirely "come back". But rather a set of jobs stays commodotized, while new areas of the economy are forged/specialized. Another pattern is hiring only senior+ to focus more on quick wins rather than building out a team for long-term success. It's really hard to be a junior right now. I hope that changes as teams recognize they need to focus not on near-term gains, but building sustainable teams into the future. Short-term focus with senior+ devs has been around for over a decade. Most places do an abysmal job of actually developing people. They just let people get some exposure with little guidance. Then 2-3 years later they're applying to seniorjobs at a different Corp. Nothing is longterm anymore. This definitely seems to correlate with what I've seen too. General web development expertise has far less demand now than it did before, while specialist expertise in particular niche subject areas and combinations of frameworks/languages seems to be doing okay (or at least seeing more job openings again). So if you've been a company that hasn't been particularly up to date with the goings on in the industry, worked as a typical agency/midsize company Jack of all Trades dev, or you're a bootcamp graduate that learnt React or Angular or whatever in a six week course, it's going to be miserable finding a job in this climate. If you've got specialist experience, things should at least be better now than they were last year. > Another pattern is hiring only senior+ to focus more on quick wins rather than building out a team for long-term success As a senior+ myself, I hate this kind of approach. Companies spending millions in senior+ engineers… and making zero profit. I gave up a while ago and started on the path to becoming a doctor. I'm pretty happy about it except for the 10 years until I make what I used to part. This is good news. I found a new job in early 2024 and it was brutal, it took about 6 months of looking and interviews with ~20 companies, which is a lot considering my prior offer-to-interview ratio was pretty close to 1.000. I still ended up taking a ~40% pay cut and took a job using tech I don't know well. 40% seems like a lot. Were you previously at a FANG level salary? No, not even close really. $250k TC -> $150k. Depending on location, that's still good. That's still over the US median for devs. I wonder if this layoff statistics also consider the contractors whose contract wasn’t extended . The company I work for didn’t do any layoffs in theory but simply stopped extending expiring contracts. And let me tell you, there were a lot of contractors. Yep, 10% advertised RIF usually translates to ~30% actual headcount reduction. Glad to hear this - I'm still looking for employment after a four month search, but at least the market is headed in the right direction now. I don't know if TrueUp incorporates this data, but https://data.indeed.com/ shows the number of software dev postings in the US has started to plateau at a level roughly matching the early-COVID crash (Spring 2020), while in central Europe (Germany and France) it's also around that level (bit higher for France) but still rapidly declining with no end in sight. Nice find - thanks for sharing! how many of the openings have the actual intent of hiring? how many are for market rate compensation? how many are non AI jobs? how many of those of laid off got hired again though since 2023? Probably not many, that’s why the job market is still too competitive. Anecdotally, my inbox is a lot more active the last few months than the entirety of 2023. This is great. Also the ratio of "who's hiring" replies vs "who wants to be hired" replies went back above 1.0f this last month. The entry level will stay terrible for the forseeable future Seems the intermediate level is trash too. Everyone is a senior now after 2-3 years. Nobody wants to acknowledge that a large number of senior devs are really intermediate.