Demand for human workforce is primarily caused by the economy's growth. It requires significantly less human workers to maintain an economy.

then it's going to inadvertently happen to the trades too 😬

That won't stop large corporations from dramatically reducing programming jobs my friend.

I think a lot of the crunch in the labor market for programmers is "monkey see monkey do" thinking at the big tech companies. It might even be somewhat calculated, though I hesitate to call something a conspiracy when it could simply be due to stupidity on the part of senior management.

Large tech companies tend to have a lot of flexibility and their total headcount because they have a wide variety of departments and tasks that they can set aside for an extended period before it causes any problems. Those problems will eventually catch up with them, though, as will a code base written by somebody who doesn't understand what they're trying to accomplish.

So I think the pendulum is going to swing back to a labor crunch at some point. My guess is at least another 6 months before we see any hint of that, though. I don't think it will be as bad as it was before the advent of LLMs, though. They really are a productivity enhancing tool, particularly for software developers who know what they're doing.

Well yeah but I believe the idea is in short the uncertainty, why it's saying "in 10 years". Think of it now as you have a kid graduating high school this year, and asks you what to major in in college that's likely to make enough to pay off those killer loans it's going to take.

My dad is a master mason and can't find anyone at all who wants to do the job. It's hard, hard work. Unfortunately, it seems like he's going to have to retire with no apprentices to carry on all his incredible knowledge.

Currently there is a big shortage in Nuclear Medicine (NM) Technicians (with PET and CT certs as well) and ECHO technicians (particularly those with certification with infant ECHO). The hospital I work in started an ECHO school because so many leave to travel or go to the cardiology offices. It is the only way we can keep staffed. NM-- we are reduced in the cardiology offices to hiring on one travel tech per office (we used to have 3 techs at a time). With one tech, they have to provide extra nursing support and it is almost harder to keep office nurses.

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places but it seems nobody wants to train technical labor at least in northern Alabama. But the political climate has thrown a wrench in jobs rn

As a skilled technical laborer, I utilize AI to remind me of niche topics I've forgotten on the fly, and it's shockingly accurate. I think I've seen one mistake in 2 years, and it was a minor one at that. Luckily, we're not quite at the point where robotics can replace me, but I could see it replacing 50% of my workplace in my lifetime.

Well the job market for developers is still pretty tight at the moment. I don't have the insight to say for sure why (though I have some guesses), but I know that for me and every junior developer I know it's rough out there.

LLMs are going to replace some developers, the companies that do that will fold because their product doesn't work, the developers will get jobs elsewhere.

As a graduate from good university in computer science who is struggling to find a job. Go learn something that can be aided by code, but don't make code the center of your career...

"any developers?" bad choice of words. I can promise you with absolute certainty that SOME developers WILL be made redundant because of AI.

not all, not lots, not the majority, but some

Building trades are hell on your body and there is no goddamn way that any construction worker (Electrician, carpenter, plumber, pipefitter, mason etc) can last until SS age-- esp. as they are planning to raise it to 70.

Part of me wants to argue this isn't a cycle of demand and is instead capitalism. The trades didn't pay poorly because there were too many people as much as people willing to work for less and the employer will pocket the difference. I admit this is extremely pedantic of me to split hairs here but people have an effective floor for how much they can work for. Coal miners weren't being told to code because there were too many coal miners but that they could never work for as little as the machines that were replacing them.

To be clear I'm not saying AI is a replacement for programmers, I'm not able to see the future here, but capitalists will attempt to to replace any labor with machines if possible.

Anthropic for starters. What they don’t realize is everyone will be switching to cyber security jobs in 10 years when every vibe coded piece of software is riddle with security vulnerabilities.

Interestingly, that's how it works for construction jobs too!

Things will break and they will be back.

Doubtful. The oligarch class only needs a handful of good developers to make working code for rich people use. The rest of us are being stuck with half-assed AI slop. They're trying to carve 99% of us out of the economy (the parts that pertain to them) and relegate us to backbreaking wage slavery. Killing middle class jobs is the point, they think.

Not saying it's a good plan, but it sure looks like what they're trying to do.

https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg