I’ve been in software development for over 26 years now, and I’ve been unemployed going on 6 months, without a single interview, even though I apply for multiple listings a day. I’ve got enough savings to be ok for quite a while yet, and am bringing in a little bit of income from my woodworking hobby, but I am starting to get worried. I have no idea how those without the same kind of safety net as me are handling this, but it can’t be good.
“Cloud” Engineer here, same, whenever they flipped the stock market on it’s head the first time. Even the listed jobs likely don’t exist.
I’ve only been in my field for about 14 years now. I’m afraid it isn’t the right time to look, so I’m holding on to my job for the life of me.
I feel that. I have plenty to coast for a long time, I could start a vintage electronics repair biz but I fear dealing with people and their fickle unrealistic expectations.
Dealing with people is the real work.
Set rules, have them sign off on the rules.
Your hourly rate is fixed, and your time is always paid. You bill for a minimum of 30 minutes for a diagnostic. Paid up front. If they choose to have you continue the repair, the remaining time from the diagnostic (if any) is applied to the part. Time and materials.
If they balk at that, they’re not good customers and they are invited to move on to the “next” repair shop.
The line in the sand is between marginal customers and word of mouth business. When the economy crashes, people will fall over themselves for repair.
Side hussle: You ebay, flea market, yardsale and dumpster dive for stuff to fix and sell it on auction. Finding old MCM sets and restoring them with actualy parts, inside and out cleaning, record players, tape decks. You can buy damaged stuff a LOT cheaper and flip it for profit.
Yeah I feel I’d need to be starving to actually want to deal with people. I’d have to let them in my house, I don’t have a separate workshop. Or deal with shipping. Wrapping things to survive continental shipping, as opposed to personal dropoff, is something I’ve learned is expensive.
To be fair, no one taught me how to apply for jobs.
It’s easy. Just bring your resume in person, and a firm handshake. That’s it.
Just like we need to talk on about non-market housing for the housing crisis, maybe we need to start talking about non-market employment (worker owned cooperatives).
Can we pleeeaaase have US news in a US news sublemmy. This is not world news.
Europe job market is fine.
Canada tech sector is getting scary too.
There’s quite literally a community called WorldNews. This didn’t fit there.
Huh, well, I guess my bad.
Thats what I like about Lemmy. People admit they were wrong and move on. This kind of exchange would never occur on Reddit.
I apologize if I came off aggressive. I was not fully caffeinated and was still half asleep.
Don’t overthink. You were straight to the point without any emotion :D
I can’t comment about anywhere else, but the UK job market broke down pre-COVID.
Post-COVID it has gotten even worse as even more skills are automated. About the only job sectors actively recruiting are the NHS (primarily nurses), STEM teachers (primary/secondary), retail, and hospitality.
They’re all high stress with a comparatively low wage - the latter 2 tend not to pay living wages and also tend to be “shift work” (i.e. 0 hour contracts).
For those of us holding other jobs, this market has led to wage squeezes and a sharp decline in working conditions. Most folks have taken an effective pay cut, and workload models are squeezing more tasks into each role.
Overall, it’s a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
I have a friend in Edinburgh who has been out of work since last June. He is getting desperate.
But the wealthier get wealthier on profits they could share with their workers, or at least pay it to the government to pay for programs that could help people.
But that won’t work because they need to build more bombs to build to kill foreign people that the workers don’t have a beef with. How about kill fewer foreigners, and distribute the savings among the citizens?
But the wealthier get wealthier on profits they could share with their workers
Not everyone is that bad though. I shared with every employee. Everyone had a part in profits and a saying in procedure. Even the cleaning staff. Working time was just “on paper”, everyone could come and go as they pleased (as long as agreed upon work was done). It wasn’t even legal (how crazy is that…), but noone ratted me out 😁
My point? It’s possible AND feasible. It’s just greed that destroys everyone and Everything.
And your employees probably won’t kill you and burn down your company.
That’s how it’s supposed to work, but at some point, the challenge became “Let’s see how badly we can abuse them before they start killing us, then we’ll back off a bit, and then proceed more slowly.”
Exactly like that. Sadly so. As if making money is only possible if you’re a soulless piece of shit that would sell their own kid for 5 moneyz.
Disgusting…
About the only job sectors actively recruiting are the NHS (primarily nurses), STEM teachers (primary/secondary), retail, and hospitality.
Same here (Germany) too. As far as I can judge from the “outside” though (never really worked).
Though the average salary of nurses went really up here, including many benefits never before seen. Just because noone wants it anymore. Shitty times, ungrateful horrible customers etc.
One thing I find kind of funny is how AI is flooding HR inboxes with trash, and how that now means the old boomer advice of showing up to a company and asking for a job in person seems a lot more considerable than it had before.
I do think this is underappreciated advice though. In 2015 after I finished my Bachelors I wasn’t having any luck with job searching, so I started printing my resume and hand-delivering it to the companies instead of responding online. My resume sat on the desk of my future manager for a few weeks until he eventually decided to go through with interviewing me. If I had only applied online I suspect my application would have been looked at only once, and I probably wouldn’t have been hired.
That kindof sucks if you’re trying to move to a different city that actually has the jobs you’re looking for
But 99% will still refuse and direct you to the online application
“AH! Glad you brought that up, because I have FANTASTIC news for you: I’ve already done it! Because I am productive and prepared. I get things done–and you could really use someone who shows up on time every time right about now. At this time, I’m still a mere potential customer of yours, but employers who accept me into a position also commence receiving the benefits of my following of instructions and due diligence effort to learn my role PLUS as a bonus total insulation from workplace drama: I know how to leave drama at home as well as neither create, nor amplify, nor reflect it in the workplace.”
honestly bro if someone showed up in my office with that kind of energy I’d be emailing the owner of the company asking him to hire them right fucking now. people who know how to do the most basic shit AND ACTUALLY WILL DO IT are worth a lot more than any “highly skilled and experienced” diva who never answers their fucking phone when they’re on call or totally flakes out from their scheduled shift once a week like clockwork.
So now we have to beg for jobs on top of all the other bullshit? Great.
and the boomer assumption hasnt been true for like decades already. job sites just eliminated that “in person meeeting”. the neat thing about the job sites pre-pademic is you can post, comment, review about certain jobs and industries, they largely eliminated the forums and reviews that are critical of companies because of what happened with glassdoor.
What happened with glassdoor?
spammed with defamation lawsuits, do to the US’s backwardaass legal system any resource like glassdoor always ends up in that scenario. they either get consumed by lawsuits or they turn their business model into allowing businesses to buy a good rating.
Capitalists say the system is working as it should. The poor are civilization’s crumple zone and air bags. They get destroyed in the event of a crash to protect the (rich) drivers.
I can get you a job working for Iran. The hours are flexible and the pay is good.
Capitalism, working as it should.
What kind of position are you talking about?
Human shield, but your beneficiaries get the full 42 years of salary, at 26,322,500,000.00 Iranian Rial per year. Paid out yearly over the remaining years.
That’s not unattractive. I was waiting until after things calmed down to visit, but maybe I head over earlier.
Weather is getting a bit warm though, will the position still be open in 6 months or so?
That’s only $20,000 a year. Did I set the joke salary too high?
Ugh, you’re gonna make us compete for it like it’s a capitalist system? I guess it’s better than getting Hannibal Directed on Oct 7th for some concert tickets.
Working for America’s enemy.
The danger in capitalism is if your enemy has more money than you…they win. You can’t afford to defend yourself.
How ya gonna fix THAT?
My concern is it’s not talent, skill, training, knowledge, or even luck. Just dirty old money. Oil does that.
The danger in capitalism is if your enemy has more money than you…they win. You can’t afford to defend yourself.
They don’t even need more money than you, if they’re using weapons that cost $20K per, and you’re shooting them down with weapons that cost $800M per or more, it’s basic attrition.
Add to that, you fire off all your stockpiles of $4B weapons in the opening gambit because you have no competence as a military strategist, fired all your top brass, and replaced them with sycophantic yes men.
And meanwhile your population at home is growing more discontented as they feel the squeeze tightening more and more each day, while government support is being stripped away and their tax dollars are going into the pockets of billionaires. And they’re simultaneously being extorted for healthcare, rent, utilities, and groceries; education begins to feel out of reach and offer diminishing returns; opportunities for dignified labor vanish along with the potential for a livable salary.
Sooner or later if something doesn’t bend, it’ll break. And when it does it’ll be catastrophic for the system as a whole. And at that point, you already blew through your weapons stockpiles on pointless wars while refusing them to your former allies in their time of need. Nobody is gonna have your back when it all comes crashing down on you.
Yeah, the United States is fucked. Hopefully Iran and China have more humanity when they inevitably invade in the next ten years or so. Hopefully they don’t bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure the way the US government is doing to Iran right now…
But between Russia invading Ukraine, Israel in Palestine, and now the US in Iran, all of whom seem to be getting away with it scot free… it’s setting a precedent that I do not like one bit…
Dark days are ahead for the world, I fear…
“Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount.
And the tigers are getting hungry."
- Winston Churchill (1938) -
Turns out deporting a bunch of people with a different shade of skin or a different accent didn’t make everyone left behind richer.
All the money still goes to the multinational corporations who don’t pay their taxes, the CEOs who are shielded from taxes, the shareholders who pay less taxes and the private equity investors who borrow big to buy companies then somehow magically transfer that debt to the company, and who also get a big tax discount compared to those of us who earn our money.
Turns out it was never the immigrants making Americans poor in the first place. Who knew?!
I’ve been unemployed since November… of 2024. The job market is the worst in which I have tried to find a job in the over 15 years I have had a full time job.
my bro who was in tech was unemployed during the first wave of layoffs in '23, just heard my other bro who works through tech, from a recruiting companies has been indefinitely sidelined from work.
although i dont think my older is trying too hard to find it, WFH is long been eliminated, he needs to consider In office at the point.
It’s been bad for a long time the gaslighting is just not working. Homeless crisisis don’t happen in great job markets so yea it’s starting to look like guillotine thirty
You know it’s pretty bad when you can’t even find TEMP/CONTRACT jobs!
I know the feeling yet I am about to quit one work from home job for another. Already got the computer ship to me and I have send the another one back. Guess getting my insurance license paid off. Because the new company reached out to me after seeing my resume on Monster. I also been getting hits on Indeed. But anything outside of insurance just not seeing any jobs. And I mean nothing not even temp. Gives me anxiety. Because though I have good paying jobs and plenty offers there all in a feild thought I would like but now hate. But now I am trapped.
one of my bro is contracted/recruited and he said projects have been stalled so there is no more work for him, but i believe he still being partially paid in tech. likely they know the AI BS is busting at some point.
Really? And I thought capitalism gets better and better each year for the common people. Because, you know, higher productivity and progress and such.
/s…just incase
At the end of the day, it’s always the fucking suits who get the most of the cake.
CS, physics, biotech, pretty much alot of stems have a hard time finding a job. before pandemic it was bad, during covid,and then with AI its now impossible.
pre pandemic, job sites had links to the company website, but they all use different softwares to immediately reject people, now its just done with AI, which has a higher “rate” of doing it.
Is that backed up by statistics or just vibes?
COVID saw unemployment peak at 15%. I haven’t seen anything remotely that bad.
Archived link: https://archive.ph/TEM72
There are a number of data points discussed in the article, including self-report surveys and BLS data. I would hesitate to riff off any title of a news article, though, they’re often not written by the article’s author and are purposefully written to drive engagement
Try reading the article.
(not who you’re replying to) I read the beginning of the article, it seemed it was going off subjective information. “It feels worse”. I tried to go back and got pay walled, so unfortunately I couldn’t read it. What information are you suggesting they missed out on? They’re asking for objective data, which is totally fair
The article is literally about workers’ opinions based on conducted polls, so the title is accurate. Whether or not these agree with labor statistics collected by an increasingly dubious government is a different subject.
Paywalled
The article about vibes is based on vibes, yes.
