I believe it would be interesting to compare to graduates / etc. in the same timeframe.

whats the point of posting this on HN? is this linkedin i came to HN so i can avoid posts on linkedin.

My friend who has worked for some big name companies is absolutely struggling to find work. So many interviews, 3rd, 4th round, and then they go with another candidate, or I can only assume someone internally and the listing never existed. It's killing me watching him struggle to find work.

As an employer it’s very very hard to actually discern who did CS as a prestige degree vs people who are actually into it.

Signal v noise ratio so much higher in hardware, nobody performatively studies mechanical engineering to make $60k in ohio.

Headline is misleading.

Should be something like tech employment rate of growth is lower than it was in 2008 or 2020.

There are many many more tech workers than at either of those points.

I don't recall any recession with respect to tech in 2020. It was a hiring frenzy.

Any commentary about tech jobs that does not include the interest rate environment and the massive over hiring that occurred between 2019 and 2022 is borderline dishonest.

Look at federal data of SWE job postings and look at the federal funds rate for the same period. Jobs is giant mountain peaking in ‘22. Interest rate is zero for the pandemic and then spikes right when SWE jobs start to collapse.

Tech hiring is all downstream of interest rates. AI has had almost no impact, at least not yet. (Block layoffs were not AI, look at their stock, they basically can only succeed as a financial company when money is free, very misleading and a convenient excuse for terrible management to now say they need to be “AI native”)

Although the graph lists BLS data as the source, it's hard for me to find the specific datasets that back it up. It's March 2026 and the graph indicates it would encapsulate 2025. In fact, the "Software Development Job Postings on Indeed in the United States" indicate something different, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1T60O

I was able to find the following:

- Software Publishers https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SMU06000005051320001

  - Regional data available only, numerous national statistics are discontinued

  - California region matches up, but places like Boston don't https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SMU25000005051320001

- Computing Infrastructure Providers https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES5051800001

  - Matches up perfectly, no notes here.

- Computer Systems Design https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES6054150001

  - However, the graph in the tweet doesn't include the February data (even though it claims "recent") which shows an increase

- Web Search Portals https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES5051900001

  - Matches up, but February data isn't in the graph which shows an increase from January

- Streaming Services https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SMU06000005051620001

  - Doesn't include January or February 2026 data, doesn't match up with graph in tweet

I wasn't able to find the following: - Custom Computer Programming Services

There are numerous open questions in this analysis which I would need to be addressed before drawing any conclusions. My gut feeling would love to accept it at face value but I never trust my gut.

The graph does a really poor job supporting the conclusion, most obviously because it only goes back to 2016, the peak of boom times, it doesn't go anywhere near 2008 so why does the caption talk about that? Just this same graph alone going back to 1990 would be super eye-opening.

The other thing is it's showing first derivative, not absolute numbers, which is a very questionable way to derive "worst employment situation" in a field that has been on world-changing boom over the last 50 years.