[pjc50]

There's been a lot of redundancies. Games industry hit particularly badly. I'm not sure how much of it is "real" and how much is sentiment; personally, I think profitable companies having layoffs is always "sentiment".

The interest rate rises were intended to contract the economy and reduce wage inflation pressure by increasing unemployment, and they seem to have had that effect.

The AI bubble is also causing a lot of companies to believe in the idea of replacing their staff with AI.

[lukan]

"The AI bubble is also causing a lot of companies to believe in the idea of replacing their staff with AI."

Replacing generic slogan writers with AI might work, but replacing IT workers with AI at this point will be funny to watch (from a distance).

[onemoresoop]

The expectation with AI is that fewer devs will create and maintain more. It's not that the tools aren't useful, but they're a lot more useful for employers to squeeze out more from employees.

[Lord-Jobo]

The worst IT professionals, like bottom 10% (which seem to be in the top .01% for getting hired and holding a job, somehow), are about on par with AI in my experience. At least with Health care IT professionals, which might be a huge selection bias. I am just about as likely to see complete nonsense suggestions or a complete misunderstanding of the problem from either.

[lukan]

Oh, no doubt about that. But also like you said, people who hired them in the first place, apparently cannot judge them correctly, so won't judge correctly now, who to fire as incompetent.

[myth_drannon]

Unemployment is very low (in N.A.).

What changed is remote work. My company got rid of US/UK based employees and only hires LATAM contractors by the hundreds.