Tech jobs have dried up

Once heavily wooed and fought over by companies, tech talent is now wrestling for scarcer positions. The stark reversal of fortunes for a group long in the driver’s seat signals more than temporary discomfort. It’s a reset in an industry that is fundamentally readjusting its labour needs and pushing some workers out. Postings for software development jobs are down more than 30pc since February 2020, according to Indeed.com. Industry layoffs have continued this year with tech companies shedding around 137,000 jobs since January, according to Layoffs.fyi. Many tech workers, too young to have endured the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s, now face for the first time what it’s like to hustle to find work. Company strategies are also shifting. Instead of growth at all costs and investment in moonshot projects, tech firms have become laser focused on revenue-generating products and services while putting enormous resources into AI. Workers with expertise in the field are among the few strong categories.

(Adapted from “Tech Jobs Have Dried Up — And Aren’t Coming Back Soon,” by Katherine Bindley and Jospeh Pisani, published on September 19, 2024, by the Wall Street Journal)

BOJ’s rate hike plans

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s efforts to lift rock-bottom borrowing costs face fresh challenges as a yen rebound and the new political leadership’s preference for loose monetary policy raise the hurdle for rate hikes. New Japanese premier Shigeru Ishiba stunned markets this week when he said the economy was not ready for further rate hikes, an apparent about-face from his previous support for the BOJ unwinding decades of extreme monetary stimulus. The surprisingly blunt remarks pushed the yen lower against the dollar and cast fresh doubts over how aggressive the BOJ would be in raising rates. The BOJ in March delivered its first rate hike in 17 years, arguing the pace of price and wage increases showed Japan was finally shaking its entrenched deflationary mindset. Predicting the political clouds, the BOJ has already laid the groundwork to pause, potentially using overseas risks, such as a slowing US economy, as an argument for not raising rates straight away.

(Adapted from “BOJ’s Rate Hike Plans Face Political Curve Ball,” by Leika Kihara, published on October 4, 2024, by Reuters)

Strong job market in the US

US job gains increased by the most in six months in September and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1pc, pointing to a resilient economy that likely does not need the Federal Reserve to deliver large interest rate cuts for the rest of this year. In addition to the bigger-than-expected increase in nonfarm payrolls reported by the Labour Department last week, wages rose at a solid pace last month. The closely watched employment report also showed the economy added 72,000 more jobs in July and August than previously estimated. The report followed on the heels of annual benchmark revisions to national accounts data last week that showed the economy is in much better shape than previously estimated, with upgrades to growth, income, savings and corporate profits. Voters have been mostly concerned by inflation, though price pressures have abated considerably after surging in 2022.

(Adapted from “Blowout US Employment Report Reinforces Economy’s Resilience,” by Lucia Mutikani, published on October 4, 2024, by Reuters)

Six questions to be better

Think of your past decisions as a dataset that you can mine for insights. A series of six questions can help you apply lessons from your past decisions to your current situation. 1) What is the decision you’re facing now? 2) What is it about the current decision that is stressful for you, and what is your go-to approach for solving it? 3) What are one or two previous decisions that you want to learn from? What didn’t go well? Why do you think it didn’t go well? 4) With 20/20 hindsight, what assumptions did you make that might have contributed to the outcome? 5) How might you apply your learning to the current decision you face? 6)What is your solution now?

(Adapted from the article “How To Learn From Your Mistakes And Make Better Decisions,” by Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, published by HBR Early Career)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 7th, 2024