Job postings are not jobs. A company can layoff 10k and post jobs for 1k and have job postings be up.

Projections are useless. The past does not predict the future.

BLS is useless for the same reason, amplified.

Maybe if you’re at the point where you dismiss three datapoints that all disagree with your thesis without any real argument you should rethink your thesis.

I don’t dismiss them because I disagree, but because they measure something tangential to the point.

There is data on average software salaries and job counts.

Salaries have not grown since 2021. Inflation is high in the same time period, meaning pay is substantially down over the last five years.

Actual jobs are harder to measure but various sources all show swings of +\-5% each year.

Salaries are down 10%, and best case scenario jobs are up 5% in that same time frame.

I think a big part is that the hiring market for juniors feels apocalyptic rn. Jobs may be up in aggregate but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone’s feeling it equally.

Maybe a case of really high profile companies doing RIFs while medium and smaller companies keep hiring?

Reversion to the mean?