Was the job market this bad back at the WWW Bubble in 2001?

I feel 2001 was far more severe compared to now.

I know since the tech layoffs accelerated in Oct/Nov 2022 some people have a hard time finding new jobs or at the same salary. Particular for newer graduates or people with limited years of experience it is not easy.

But here in the Silicon Valley overall it does not yet really felt that much different. Some companies are still hiring, there are opportunities, roads here have rush hour and restaurants are still see guests coming in.

In 2002/2003 when you drove down N. First Str. in San Jose those buildings were mostly empty. It was scary. Hard to come by any job opportunity and highway 101 had no congestion. Many people moved out of CA at that time and it took years to recover.

To me 2008 with the real estate bubble felt less of an impact as tech was not hit so hard.

Now to me technology companies overall are already in a recession, but in the last few months layoffs, shutdowns have calmed down. Despite the swing back to higher interest rate many businesses are still doing ok, but should the overall economy slow down further in 2024 we might see also more cut downs, more reduction in work force and a weakening housing market might further deteriorate the situation.

I don’t think we are out of the woods yet and maybe a good time to ask in 6-9 months again if www bubble in 2001 was worse

In 2000 I was writing chapters for programming books with Wrox Press, I think they could have taken as much as I could have written, but consulting work paid better. I got a job working remote for an MIT MBA and McKinsey alumni developing a chat service aimed at Portuguese speaking markets (esp. Brazil.). I was also spending a lot of time doing activism for the green party and worked as an enumerator for the 2000 census.

The Brazil gig ended and my wife and I decided to have a kid anyway, finding a real job took a while, particularly six months of working to get an academic organization to create a line item to hire me, but I got a job (starting summer 2002) that lasted five years until my whole university had a financial crisis.

For maybe a year after I got hired we had Bay Area refugees showing up in town and hiring them for web development, I think the hype train pulled out of the station by 2003 or so.

Yes.

And 2008.

(And earlier times! I've been through multiple recessions etc as a freelancer/consultant. The meeja and politicians would love you to believe that each time is the WURST EVAAAA but, well, it only feels like it at the time...)

The market is just stable at the moment, what was bizarre is around end 2020 and 2021.

What I'm surprised is that Big Tech is still paying those high salaries even though there are so many good developers in the market.

I see some complaints regarding junior roles -- it has always been this hard!

I had a diploma in CS and had to spend a few months building my own apps in 2010, and many interviews to finally get a job.

I feel it was worse in 2001/2002 than it is now.

Sidenote: The number of people working in software has grown immensely during these 20 odd years. (seems 5-10x larger now) The typical developer background has also changed quite a bit.