The industry used to have lifers in the last century. That reduced to 10 years at a company in the dotcoms. That reduced to 4 years at a company in the 00s. That reduced to 18 months pre-pandemic.
Right now, I don't even know why software engineers should do anything but keep hopping jobs all the time. There is less value in promotions/raises/loyalty than in constant hopping.
The "more to life" part cannot even be obtained at massively profitable companies because the companies will yank you at the slightest sign of slowdown.
You might not want to hop but the company might want you to hop.
I don't think my employer has ever laid anyone off. Some people have been fired for cause and some people have quit but no layoffs. Not all companies are giant corporate behemoths that run everything by metrics.
Maybe it's the era when I started working, but for ICs, I think 2-5 years is the sweet spot. Any shorter and you weren't fully productive at the company and never built connections. Any longer and your skills get too tied to the company and your perspective become stale.
"Inability to commit"? More like, companies treat employees as disposable, don't give appropriate raises or promotions, and through their incompetence force employees to move on to obtain the market salary for their efforts. If anything, their existing company should be willing to pay MORE because they're already familiar with that company's systems and have useful knowledge built up over time.
Many employees would love to "commit". When's the last time anyone offered a software engineer a 2 or 3 year contract, with a 6 months salary severance if they're terminated before the end of the contract? Who's afraid of commitment here?
During healthier job markets, I've seen tons of candidates job hopping every 12-24 months to get better pay etc. This is wasteful of time for the companies, who train these employees up before they're fully productive.
Now, in a recession, there is more of a scarcity mindset on the side of the workers as you are showing.
Someone job hopping every 12 months in a low-interest-rate climate isn’t doing it because they’re being “mistreated” by their current employer, over and over again. They’re exploiting a high demand job market to leverage their current position and get higher pay as an incentive to leave. This happened a lot in the Trump years when the economy was happy.
With regard to contracts, it’s a fair point. But what other white collar work has those?
Right now, I don't even know why software engineers should do anything but keep hopping jobs all the time. There is less value in promotions/raises/loyalty than in constant hopping.