| Software Developer Jobs In Decline? |
| Written by Sue Gee | |||
| Wednesday, 14 August 2024 | |||
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After a post-pandemic boom in well-paid jobs for software developers, job openings are now down on pre-pandemic levels and after many, well-publicized, layoffs from major tech companies in 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies. The situation with regard to demand for software developers is well illustrated by this chart which plots an index of new job postings based on data from global recruitment firm, Indeed. The index starts on February 1, 2020, i.e. just as the Covid 19 pandemic was starting to spreading from China to the rest of the world. During 2020 the index first fell to around 65, but recovered in the second half of the year. By the beginning of 2021 it had recovered to its starting position but continued to rise at an increasing rate, reaching around 230 at the beginning of 2022.
In our report Boom Time For Developer Recruitment in January 2022, the buoyant recruitment trend was expected to continue but in fact we had experienced the peak and within a few months the decline in new jobs had set in and the 100 mark on the index was passed early in 2023. After this, while the rate of decline slowed, it continued to fall, recently reaching 68.9. The decline in new jobs for developers has been compounded by layoffs in the tech industry which have been documented by TechCrunch, based on data collected by Layouffs.fyi. In summary workforce reductions, including startup closures started to be tracked in 2022. In 2023 262,735 layoffs were recorded, 59% higher than 2022's total and while the rate of job losses has slowed in 2024 it is still substantial with companies including Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft responsible for sizable layoffs. Both phenomena can be interpreted as readjusting after over-hiring in the immediate post-pandemic period. Similarly the finding of the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey that average developer salaries had reduced by $10K USD, as we reported last week in Developer Work, Pay and Satisfaction, can be seen as a restoring the status quo after offering anomalously high rates in the post-pandemic recruitment spree. So what can we expect for future jobs in the software industry? The forecast for decade 2022 - 20023 from the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics is upbeat, putting Software Developer in second position in terms of occupations with the most growth with over 400K new jobs coming on stream. So while there has been a real decline in job opportunities, this trend looks to be reversed and software developers in the United States can continue to expect to be paid around 2.5x the average salary for all worker. More InformationThe rise and fall of software developer jobs Related ArticlesDeveloper Work, Pay and Satisfaction (2024) Boom Time For Developer Recruitment (2022) Mitchell Baker Relinquishes CEO Role Before Mozilla Announces Layoffs (2024) Mozilla Layoffs and Change of Focus (2020) To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, sign up for our weekly newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed and follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin. 
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 14 August 2024 ) |
