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6% is Incredibly high unemployment, and a result of a persistent multi year coordinated class warfare effort against us programmers. We all use the AI they claim is taking the load off. We all know the truth. All of us who aren't so new at this to be wowed by the shiny, are quite aware of the parts of our job it cannot do.

The owner class is coming at us because we programmers tend to be organized and well connected, and we have serious leverage.

Remember that 94% employment still represents a lot of shared power. Let's look out for each-other. And remember that there's not going to be enough of us to clean up the messes they are making by under-hiring. Be choosy who you help with clean-up, and who you justly leave to rot in their choices. Don't stay too long working for shitty employers. Find the next gig, when it comes. Get the money they're trying to claw back from the next place, and from the previous place on a short lucrative contract. If all they understand is money, give them a chance to express how much like they staying online and in business, with it.

i have extended family that had cs, and couldnt find a job, they are probably in adjacent fields. i can say the same for bio related majors that is not going into health, which is more difficult : must have lab experience prior to graduation(catch 22, where else can you get it when not in school), you'd be lucky to even get it as a post-bacc if they dont already prioritized undergrads, and graduates first. and the biggest is research experience, which is even harder to get than lab(research as part of your degree doesnt count, unless you were published in well known journal, its pushing it though.) i know people with a MS in a bio-related degree with no job prospects, gave up after 4 months of searching in '18. agraduate degree is even less attractive to a job market.

while one of my closer fam had a wierd hybrid programming and only found a job after 1 year of searching last decade, and got laid off in '23, still unemployed to this day, he thinks he can live off what he earned over 9-10years on the job and severance pay.

i met someone in a gig job with a CS degree, was somewhat delusional, he thinks by going into a ms/ma degree for CS would mean he be able to advance in his career(obviously came to a in-between jobs because his cs dint work out), but many schools wont take someone who already has a degree, unless you're applying to a grad program. basically no 2nd BS degree, no degree shopping, or academic "incest"(which is getting a undergrad and a grad degree from the same school)

Funny how everyone and their mom was screaming to study computer science 3-5 years ago. Bragging about earning 6 figure wages. This is what that kind og hype gets you. A saturated job market with high unemployment rate. Next the wages will plummet because people will be so desperate for a job, they'll gladly work for half of what they're worth.

NOTE: Computer Scientists are the folks that do lots of math to figure out the best algorithm to use to solve any given computational problem. It's a very specific subset of programming.

For a long, long time companies sought to hire people with computer science degrees as software developers under the impression that these were the best people for developing software. This was a very bad assumption.

Turns out, computer scientists are often terrible at software development! They don't usually teach things like how to best organize large projects or even basics like source code management or software deployment/management in CompSci programs. Yet those are the actual skills employers need these days.

Want to get a job in software development? You don't need a degree at all! What you need is to demonstrate your skills with whatever tools/software employers are demanding. The simplest way to do that is with posting some open source code to GitHub (or similar).

When hiring—if the person I'm interviewing has a public repo that uses the tech we're using—they're basically hired immediately. At that point the only thing I care about is, "does this person seem OK-ish to work with?" LOL! Easiest hire ever 👍

Every "entry level" job opening asks for five years of experience with some technology that has only existed for two years.

I got my CS degree eight years ago, and it's been gathering dust as I've been working an unrelated part-time job instead. At this rate I feel like it might be too late for me, having no real work experience at my age is something recruiters probably see as a red flag...

99.9% of jobs requore at least 3 to 5 years of experience

LeArN tO cOdE!!11!

I'm curious how this compares to non-STEM majors.

It would be better to introduce 'programming literacy' course. Like, learn whatever trade you like, but with a computer, because computers are everywhere now.

The computer by itself isn't that much useful, it needs to control something, like CNC welding machine, and if you can write the most basic Python to control your welding machine, you can do twice the work, because you can run your welding machine at night.

Seems ironic when you consider how many people start out in all kinds of other things and end up as programmers. [I was chemistry major]

I recall reading a piece on The Register some weeks ago, about the "enshittification of tech jobs". It was a load of bullshit (mostly a whining piece on how workers for the megacorps were no longer being treated with red carpets) and the comments rightly stated that tech jobs were shit since the 1980s. Folks also chimed on how "have a compsci graduation and you'll get good job offers with good salaries" has been a lie for a long time, especially when you don't live near any tech hub