The chart in the tweet represents year-on-year growth. Based on these figures alone the actual number of people employed in tech is still really high, and the numbers can't just go up forever.

Also this only captures 6 industries, which is a narrow view of what would define "tech" these days.

Not to say that the job market isn't tough but this graph is a very narrow view

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darth_avocado 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The chart in the tweet represents year-on-year growth.

Can’t believe how many people are commenting without looking at what the chart means. We’ve lost 50k jobs last two years after decades of adding 100k+ every year including the pandemic highs of 300k+ per year. Total employment remains way above 2000s, 2008 and 2020 unlike the title suggests.

	▲	ipnon 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, but how many people have tried to enter the field since then? Is the economy that supports current number of tech workers really better than one that supports 10x?

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causal 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks for pointing this out - title is extremely misleading. Total tech jobs is not lower than 2008 just because YoY is down.

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OJFord 10 hours ago | parent [-]

General media, news, etc. gets this wrong all the time, see any commentary on inflation, GDP growth, rate of change in house prices, etc.

	▲	abustamam an hour ago \| parent [-]
		As an aside, I remember some time ago that Tesla stock went down because the growth of the Model 3 sales went down... After years of being one of the best selling cars on the planet. If number don't go up fast I guess people get scared.

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onlyrealcuzzo 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The chart shows devs still growing, and "Computer System Design SERVICES" getting hammered (most of the total loss).

I'm not even sure this chart tells the story of the title.

	▲	klooney 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Is this WITCH companies?

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hyperpape 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, but...

The health of the market is not a function of the total number of jobs alone, it's a function of the number of jobs and the number of people to fill them.

The number of total jobs going up year after year meant that there were increasing numbers of candidates, new people entering the field. If the job growth stops, then there still we be candidates coming in. There will also be the new hires from the last decade moving into increasingly senior roles, and there won't be space for them (unless you devalue the meaning of "senior" even more).

So the year over year change matters a lot. If it plateaus, or even declines slightly, it's more than enough to make a terrible market.

	▲	magicnubs 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		YoY change in jobs is still probably not the best way to visualize overall market health. As you say, you also have to take into account the number of people of fill the jobs. To me it seems like the least misleading statistics would be a graph showing unemployment and underemployment % over time. I'd probably also toss in graphs of length of unemployment period as well as various median wage percentiles (quintiles or deciles maybe) over time.
	▲	causal 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It shows growth or decline but it absolutely does not show what the title implies.

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janalsncm 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The chart shows the derivative of the thing people care about which is total cumulative change. The area under the curve shows cumulative change.

	▲	abustamam an hour ago \| parent [-]
		And they said we'd never have to use calculus in real life!

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tootie 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The post-COVID spike was also absolutely insane and much bigger than dotcom boom.

	▲	ehnto an hour ago \| parent [-]
		And I already thought we hired more devs than needed pre-covid. It was pretty well surmised that big tech was hiring to starve other companies of talent, and thus employees were underutilised.

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10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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oblio 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Asked Gemini quickly for 2000 and 2025 numbers.

Tech employees: 5.5m vs 9.9.

Software developers: 0.68m vs 3.2m.

Different ball game.

	▲	8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]