A Tech Job Still Pays $120 an Hour Despite Mass Layoffs - Slashdot

A Tech Job Still Pays $120 an Hour Despite Mass Layoffs

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• The real problem with any sector these days is retirement as a good number of people retired during covid if I remember right it was in the low percentages maybe up to 5% of the workforce. So even though we have a demand down swing in labor, the shortage was even greater than that. I work in the tech sector and I'm still getting emails from recruiters

  And despite the popular OK Boomer memes, those olde farts that retired were/are actually worth their pay. My pay is by task, and sometimes there are different hours. I was re-hired part time - could be full time if I wanted - because the younger people they were trying to use found the work too stressful. Or they weren't technically adroit enough. Or they didn't have the right demeanor. You have to be nice, but you have to be respected and obeyed.

  We see it in here all the time, especially since it's popular today to demand not to ever go into work, but that work must be done at home only.

  Guess who goes away first?

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  • Worth their pay or not, boomers are retiring. En masse.

    And there is very little coming in to replace them. And you know where we notice this most? Mainframes. Yes, those old, pesky, crappy, legacy shit that's so uncool and nobody under 40 wants to touch. You have NO idea how many huge corporations not only still have them but depend on them, tied to them for sink or swim.

    Quite seriously, if you're looking for a field to get into if you're in it for the money, forget big data, forget AI, even forget security. Mainframe is where the money is. Because these people are desperately needed, the average age of the average mainframer is pushing 60 and they want to retire. They're currently kept in employ for prices that make your average security expert turn green.

    • Worth their pay or not, boomers are retiring. En masse.

      And there is very little coming in to replace them. And you know where we notice this most? Mainframes. Yes, those old, pesky, crappy, legacy shit that's so uncool and nobody under 40 wants to touch. You have NO idea how many huge corporations not only still have them but depend on them, tied to them for sink or swim.

      With a problem that it kinda works.

      Quite seriously, if you're looking for a field to get into if you're in it for the money, forget big data, forget AI, even forget security. Mainframe is where the money is. Because these people are desperately needed, the average age of the average mainframer is pushing 60 and they want to retire. They're currently kept in employ for prices that make your average security expert turn green.

      The COBOL effect, indeed.

      I've encouraged people to go into RF, and even analog. Seems like buggy whips, but it isn't. The entire tech world seemed to think that there is nothing but digital, and RF is the field of people who will die soon, and good riddance.

      Get a degree in the field of electromagnetics, and you can pretty much write your own ticket. I always like to pull out a smartphone among the digital uber alles crowd, to let them know that they are just using a fancy walkie talkie on a radio system. Weird - it shocks some who believe it's digital only.

      But you are correct about the olde boomers wishing to retire.

      Me? well, my new part time gig helps pay for my pricey toys. And I'm treated well.

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      60? Incorrect. That would be the low end, not the average. Most mainframers are in their 70's and retired, and double-dipping as consultants.

      AIX admin's are on average in their 60's...

      As far as crappy, in financial and insurance sectors, they generate 80% of the revenue and are about 5% of the CapEx and OpEx, and ~1% of the outage calls.

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      Then don't whine about nO One CaN bUy A hOUse Or cAr anY more.

      And they failed miserably, not took a pass, me wee one.

      just like people drop to AC when they are petrified and pissing their panties because they are afraid, me hearty coward.

  • Not necessarily

    there's a lot of inertia in large organizations. Yeah, I'm sure there's some boomers that're missed. But I can tell you that one of the things that drives this is that when they leave nobody seems to go out of their way to stop them. They just get replaced.
    
    Also, 300k retirements is 1 good month's worth of new hires. Boomers retiring has an effect, but I'm not sure how strong it really is. Now, the 1m+ dead from COVID, the millions of women who dropped out of the job market because childcare costs more t

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      Except when they don't.

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      Not in tech. In tech, childcare costs way less than women can earn. Most tech folks worked from home and thus relatively few died from COVID or got long COVID compared with the job market on the whole. And most tech companies hire without a college degree all the time.

      Anyway, it's worth pointing out that after factoring in the self-employment tax, this is the equivalent of earning $210k pre-tax income per year from non-contract employment, even before you factor in other lost benefits such as company-pro

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    Like every other generation, boomers are hit and miss as far as being strong employees. Many of them have incredibly relevant experience and capabilities and are a hard asset to lose when they retire, and many of them have been dead weight for a decade before they finally retire. Just like many millennials are incredible employees and many millennials have no idea what it takes to succeed in the corporate world.

    I'm surprised companies don't have more programs to keep older employees as part time once they h

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      Correct. In the end, we're all just people. I had bad luck with a lot of millenials, but two women were among the best people I ever worked with.

      They had a plan called emergency rehire where I retired from. And I went back for a while. But there were time limits on that. It's supposed to be a way to make up for the lack of mentoring in today's world, but the dingdongs just had me doing what I was already doing, and when I left for good, it was like a big surprised.

      The folks I work for now are in a comple

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          As long as the IV is Tequila, I'm game.

          BTW, if and when I get to that point, I'm checking out.

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  This is especially true for companies that still have folks grandfathered into pension plans. Pension plans usually offer a lump sum payout at retirement based on current interest rates. The lower the interest rate, the larger the lump sum payout is. In 2022 when interest rates leaped up, some of my old colleagues had to choose between retiring or essentially working for free for the next 3-4 years.

• Yes, but also no.

  Prior to the pandemic we had the opposite problem. Report [gallup.com] after report [usatoday.com], baby boomers weren't retiring. People age 70, age 75, the weren't leaving the workplace so there was tremendous downward pressure, and even a few of the Silent Generation were remaining at their posts. Gen X and Gen Y felt that pressure and often couldn't move up in the business pyramid because the past guard wouldn't give up top spots. Underemployment was a buzzword ten years ago, people being forced to take a side-gig because there were no vacancies at the level above.

  The pandemic hit, and many Boomers and Silent Generation finally decided to retire. A huge number of the 2020 and 2021 early "great resignation" tend were Baby Boomers leaving [forbes.com], which isn't too surprising since in 2021 they were aged 55-75, and most of the remaining Silent Generation, 75+ at this point, also finally pulled out.

  So over 75 million baby boomers, the bulk were leaving, and the generation replacing them on the other end, Generation Z and Millennials, has about 68 million people. The obvious math issue with population replacement there is obvious. Baby boomers were a boom of babies and a population bubble that people have known about.

  This was a huge part of the great resignation as it applied to tech. Yes, people absolutely were leaving. It's because in tech nearly all promotions come when you cross a company, not from within. The top spots finally opened up so Gen X left to take their place at other companies. This left a vacuum, and Gen Y moved in, same with Millennials, Gen Z, and the new entrants from Gen Alpha starting to take entry level spots. Yes people resigned in mass, and yes the boomers were leaving a hole of about 10 million workers generally, but it never was the sky falling like so many news reports claimed. We don't really see reports right now about people underemployed because there are no senior openings, there are jobs all around in tech despite the layoffs, which is confusing some people.

  These aren't really a tight labor market due to business-side pressures. These also aren't a mass resignation due to not working. These are a tight labor market with roughly 10 million old adults leaving and under-employed people moving up.

  This was coupled with massive growth during the pandemic, especially at a lot tech companies.

  That second side we're now seeing is basically a correction, not a recession.

  While many industries shrunk, tech had a growth explosion. Headline:"Microsoft adds 23k employees in one year, growing 14% despite pandemic and tight labor market" [ahttps]. Headline: Just how massive Amazon has grown during the pandemic, in 8 charts. [fortune.com]

  Now we're seeing a reduction, but compare the numbers. Microsoft had about 10,000 laid off in January, a few more following, but that's still a growth against the pandemic growth. Amazon's first round was 18,000, and another 9 announced this week, but it still leaves them with a bigger workforce. Another correction against the pandemic growth. Zoom had many layoffs, after their explosive pandemic growth. Twilio, Yahoo, etc., all of them look more like corrections to me, not recessions.

  So yes, all the things happened, but they're really just the effect of multiple scales all balancing themselves out.

  Read the rest of this comment...

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  I don't think it's just that. It's that 300k devs were made redundant, but the global dev shortage is well into the millions.

  Big Tech may have decided it was over staffed, but there are thousands of companies that are still have long been desperate for those engineers. The competition for them hasn't gone away, and developers haven't lost their appetite for the salaries they were on.

  I work at a mid-level company that's made it's way past unicorn startup phase that competes with big tech on salaries. Our sa

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    >Big Tech may have decided it was over staffed, but there are thousands of companies that are still have long been desperate for those engineers. The competition for them hasn't gone away, and developers haven't lost their appetite for the salaries they were on.
    They might be desperate, but a) they are not paying comparatively and b) they are a lot pickier - don't ask me why - when hiring.
    One good thing the big companies do, is that they recognize that a good engineer can retool quickly. The smaller com