[underlipton]

>programmers and IT were severely overhired during the pandemic

1) I hesitate to believe that losses were disproportionately technical roles as opposed to administrative.

2) Over-hired by what metric? It's well known that hiring never fully recovered after the GFC; was the recruitment post-pandemic just bringing us to parity with where we had been 20 years earlier?

Not to say that I disagree with your following point. The AI overspending and the layoff cost-cutting are not in a direct causal relationship; both are rather symptoms of a common corporate pathology.

[AbsurdCensor]

They were hired at a higher rate than anytime since the 90s. In the US they ballooned by almost 50%. So when you take layoffs in consideration, the US is still has 25% more programmers than it did prior to the pandemic. And looking at the hiring rates and who is getting hired in programming, it looks like companies aren’t hiring entry level basically at all at this point, so shows the market is still over saturated. No wonder coding camps and CS majors are not being pushed any longer because it’s not a great market for them.

[underlipton]

The hiring rate can be high while companies are still understaffed, and I think that's the case. A US that has 25% more programmers than it did prior to the pandemic is likely still some double-digit or triple-digit percentage short of the number of programmers it SHOULD have in order to house productive businesses that aren't constantly burning through workers (and consequently missing out on the development of deep institutional knowledge). I'm unconvinced that burning capital on data centers and seven-figure ICs was the right move, compared to building a solid and stable workforce.