I'm starting to wonder if the current employment model, at least in the tech sector, needs a change. Perhaps the health and retirement benefits needs to get offloaded to the government (with contributions from employee and employers similar to the French system) and everyone becomes a contractor. That's where employers compete for employees in the open market without benefits lockin. Yeah for the US it sounds like a pipe dream.
Good point. Actually I hope it happens (the socialized benefits) to all industries. In the past one of the reasons you committed to a corporation was for the benefits. From healthcare to retirement and stability. They are obviously not committed to anyone. Hence imo they, the corporations, should lose the benefit of the lockin. Maybe they can differentiate for the high value employees by giving them RSUs and better pay.
How is that socialism? Workers don't control the means of production in an open market either. Having healthcare and benefits tied to employment is not a smart idea as it essentially traps workers into working forever in order to get good healthcare.
Weird anecdote time since the thought just hit me. When Tesla first came out and they were still pretty rare sight anywhere outside CA, I went to change my oil at a different place than I normally go to. Some electric car was there ( and I am almost certain it was Tesla, but I won't bet money on it ).
Anyway, the story is not about Tesla. There was this guy there and you should see the gleeful smile on his face as he was telling the workers there that they will all without jobs, because EVs have no engines and stuff. I listened as I tend to do and just smiled internally, because the guy clearly knew nothing about ICE cars, EVs, electronics, economics or even basic human nature.
Today, I 'bumped' into 'business owner', who struck as the same type of a person, because as we were discussing rto/wfh and other things, he gleefully noted that AI will take all those jobs. As before I kinda smiled internally, because the more shit you see in testing, the more you realize all this is gonna go down in flames sooner or later.
Still, it is weird. Where is sense of pleasure in other people's ( perceived ) misfortune coming from?
Every single party I have been to since becoming a dev there is always at least one person who feels the need to tell me how all of us techies are going to lose our jobs.
I hate downplaying how much some people seem to be struggling (and that's probably why we don't hear about it much) but let's say for certain pockets, the tech market is pretty hot right now.
My feeling is that the market was down and falling, but AI gave the tech and startup market a lifeline with investments starting to happen again. However, the question is whether the AI market really is big or just a few companies will win and the rest really were in a bubble.
I strongly suspect this is primarily in non-tech companies who have been hit much harder by recessionary forces and inflation. On top of Section 174 making it harder to offset the tax burden of R&D work done by SWEs, I'm surprised things aren't worse than they are.
My guess is the end of nearly free money is hurting the private equity backed companies.
Private equity is the dark matter of tech. For every company that gets squired by a FAANG there's some multiple getting gobbled up by a private equity funded conglomerate to either bundle or unbundle the tech.
These are the companies making software that powers everything in society. Companies you've never heard of making software for niches you've probably never really thought about.
This doesn't mean anything without also counting how many people were hired over the past 5 years. Covid hiring was frenetic and these layoffs could merely be a reversion to the mean.
