[swatcoder]

> Anyone know what is prompting this change?

A lot of the free money that was flying around has dried up and it's easier to cryptically "rework our retirement benefits program" than it is to openly cut the unsustainable salaries that were offered during flush times.

It's the same reason that everything's finally being monetized, massive layoffs washed through, and prices are being increased. At best, it'll be the soft deflation of an egregious 5-10 year bubble and we'll remember that you can't get paid $300k out of college to write glue code nor expect to get all your online services for free.

[pinewurst]

IBM hardly paid anyone $300k out of college. If anything they were the big pushers for “new collar” == white collar work at blue collar wages. Scumbags.