[piskov]

I would say the article is about Pax Americana. Anywhere else — like Russia, Asia, Africa — IT is booming with stronger demand than ever.

Probably, one of the main reasons for layoffs in “US and what have you” is new wave of deglobalization and having your own google, visa, etc. “just in case”. This way possible markets shrink and big “IT troops” become less economically feasible.

We may even see in the not so distant future some IT migration from US to the countries outside of Pax Americana.

[kyawzazaw]

could it also be part of "section 174 US tax code"

[osigurdson]

Russia?

[benterix]

This would make sense - most of top talent left when they realized what can happen to them and those who decided to stay did it mostly for family reasons. So someone needs to fill in this hole.

[piskov]

The notion of most top talent leaving is very much opposite of true.

Some reasons for better than ever demand in IT are the creation of alternatives to some gone paid western products like SAP or migration of the existing solutions to open-source stack: e.g. from Sql server/Oracle to PostgreSQL and/or adding Linux support instead of just Windows.