Tell HN: The ratio of wants-to-be-hired to is-hiring is at a record high 0.94

[jstx1]

Counting the comments in the who wants to be hired thread and dividing by the number of comments in who is hiring = 0.94.

A year ago it was 0.23. Here's a plot with the data from the past couple of years - https://pasteboard.co/tjZd0PgTI8GK.png

(posting this about a day after the April thread opened)

[projectazorian]

There’s an odd dynamic in the market right now. In addition to layoffs, people who are subject to RTO are trying to find jobs at remote employers, so there’s an abnormally high number of already-employed folks on the job hunt right now. Not to mention all the juniors having trouble finding work at the moment.

Meanwhile remote employers are seeing less employee turnover, so don’t need to do much hiring, especially since many grew headcount considerably in 2021/2022. Which means many of those people looking for remote jobs aren’t finding a lot of success. (We’re remote and hiring for backfills only right now, not that there are many of those - and I suspect a lot of other companies are in the same spot.)

Remote roles are likely over-represented on HN, so if there are a lot of candidates chasing those roles, you’d expect a lot of growth in “who wants to be hired” posts.

I’d expect this dynamic to shift in the back half of the year. People are finding out about promotions and comp changes around this time and many will be disappointed. This will likely cause a lot of people sitting tight at remote companies to get back on the market. Some will find roles elsewhere, creating more backfills and more hiring.

Not to mention that there’s a glut of late-stage companies seeking to IPO when the IPO market reopens, likely later this year or early next. When companies IPO they usually hire a lot beforehand to tighten up processes, then do even more hiring a few months later as existing employees get their exits and decide to move on or take a break.

So the medium/long term outlook is still positive, at least.

[WinstonSmith84]

I'm afraid it's not the only explanation (economy), but it's still a very good reason. Looking at myself, I've been working remotely for the last 7 years and there is just no way back, even if another company would pay me 2x or 3x more. Remote working is a massive perk and thanks (due) to Covid, a lot of people became aware of this.

[71a54xd]

It also seems like the market has strongly skewed to the senior side of things (8+ yrs exp).

[UncleOxidant]

I still see plenty of remote jobs to apply for on LinkedIn, but I have noticed that there are a lot more applicants now. A few months back it would often be single digit numbers of applicants. Now it will often be well into the double digits of applicants.

[colmanhumphrey]

Here is a chart going back to 2014: https://slight.run/graphs/colman/ratio_of_seekers_to_hirers_...

Not quite as drastic as yours, but still not ideal.

The underlying query and data source: https://slight.run/apps/colman/job_seekers_vs_job_hiring_hac...

I'm restricting to top-level comments here, because those seem like a better proxy than all comments (excluding some discussion on a given post for example).

[ppaattrriicckk]

If anybody is interested, maybe this should be considered along with the core inflation rates - which is high in the US (peaked at 7% within the last 12 months and currently at 5.5%) and possibly still rising in the EU (12-month peak [now] at 5.7%).

If the central banks are going to stick to their declared purpose of keeping this around 2% we're still in for further rate hikes, I would imagine.

* https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/core-inflation-ra...

* https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/core-inflation-rate

I know it's not within the desired behaviour on HN to simply write "thank you!", and I hope I did provide a bit more than just that. That being said: Thank you! Also to ed_balls and madcaptenor for collecting data in the other thread.

[SilasX]

To answer what you were probably going to look for in the link: peak was March 2020 (1.19), when Covid got real, bottom was April 2018 (0.067), don't know any particular significance of that month.

[carabiner]

Looks like your chart only goes up to 2022 October? Whereas OP's goes up to today.

[muzani]

I'd like to see data go all the way back to 2020, which was when some people said had the worst job market, because of the global lockdowns. But thanks for the data anyway.

It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

Another thing to consider is that we've had layoffs recently, i.e. people without jobs encouraged to find new jobs. In the past, wants-to-be-hired may be a little low because usually people don't want to be seen looking for a job while employed.

[mortenjorck]

> It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs

I would definitely not read that from the data. I don’t know what percentage of current seekers post in the wants-to-be-hired thread, but as a potentially-outlying anecdote, I didn’t until I had already been looking for three months.

I would hypothesize that there’s a psychological barrier to posting in WWTBH, even if you’ve been laid off and have no current employer you wouldn’t want seeing it – there’s a certain vulnerability in putting yourself out there versus privately applying to jobs. For me, it took a certain level of desperation with my search to make the jump from browsing the hiring thread to finally posting in the other thread this month.

[peruvian]

I think a lot of people don't post on who wants to be hired and instead just browse who's hiring.

[red-iron-pine]

It had the worst job market -- if you weren't able to work from home. Most of the world ain't in STEM.

Many of us, myself included, already did that. I had to wear a mask to do my "morning commute" to get coffee, but otherwise my 9-5 was mostly the same.

[roncesvalles]

>people don't want to be seen looking for a job while employed

IMO this is the biggest factor causing the slowdown in tech hiring. Right now people just want to stay put wherever they are. In the past when someone jumps to another company, it opens a headcount where they were, which gets filled with someone who also jumped another company, which caused a headcount to be created there, ad infinitum causing a constant cacophony of job postings, like a "velocity" of jobs akin to velocity of money.

The combination of slack in the system (unemployed people being hired), low attrition, and some backfills not being done creates a giant dampener on the velocity.

[ipaddr]

1/2 the companies posting jobs are not really hiring. There may be positions available if someone wows them or if they can find talent for cheap.

The languages in demand change is probably more interesting. Less react positions, rails holding strong, python over taking, first time no php jobs offered.

[comfypotato]

Also consider that HN isn’t exactly indicative of any typical job market. This is a pretty niche forum even in the context of software and tech. It’s still interesting, and there’s insight to be gained. (For example, I expect a lot the the high-powered developers who were affected by recent layoffs in big tech are over-represented here.)

[pcthrowaway]

To post in the WWTBH thread, you need to share your contact info, and probably some information about yourself, so it can't be an anon account.

Which means, if you're employed and looking elsewhere, you have to be comfortable with your employer potentially discovering your eye is wandering. Which I for one, definitely wouldn't want to do right now.

So I imagine the WWTBH posts are really just the tip of the iceberg (there may be more than one employed person looking for every unemployed one that feels comfortable posting there)

Compared to the Who is Hiring posts which companies have no reason to be concerned about posting (well, maybe if they're simultaneously laying off and pretending that they need to reduce headcount when it's really about reducing the average wage)

[dayvid]

A few months into the pandemic was one of the best job markets for tech as more people were online than ever. A lot of my coworkers jumped to different companies or startups with huge salary bumps.

[UlisesAC4]

> It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

I am sure that there is a huge margin of error. I have been looking a job for 5 months. Granted, I have not used Who's hiring threads religiously and I am sure that there are positions that I applied where something with better qualifications was chosen.

[ed_balls]

I've compiles a list from 2015 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1350A5KGgmGI3Ed-tC7MP...

[throwawaysleep]

> It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

Is it? Unemployment is still incredibly low and labour shortages continue to be reported.

[prottog]

> It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

In my area, many businesses outside of the tech sector is actively hiring and can't find enough people. I think Covid triggered a demographic shift with many Boomers retiring (or dying) and that gap has not been filled.

[Herval_freire]

>It does amuse me that we're still at more people hiring than looking for jobs. It's a stark contrast to other industries, where the power is normally in the hands of employers.

No 0.94 is a sample that comes with a huge margin or error.

It very well could be that the actual ratio is that there are more programmers then jobs.

[rossdavidh]

Very interesting chart, thanks! One comment, is that it is probably more a measure of "which way is the balance of power tilting" than it is "what is the actual ratio". Many employers who could not find anyone would post the job everywhere they could think of, while people looking just read the "who is hiring" posts and then applied to the employer rather than post in the "who wants to be hired". Now the shoe is on the other foot, but that doesn't mean the ratio has shifted all that much in reality. It is a definite sign as to which side has the surplus, however.

[the_af]

As an aside, I'm not currently looking for a job (knock on wood) but people close to me are and... the interview process seems harder than ever.

Now you get recorded, told you cannot alt-tab, take home assignments are very strict for companies that aren't even close to a FAANG (I mean, if you're applying to Google it comes with the territory, but why is your random startup so strict?), you are automatically graded on your command of English, etc.

There are still the garbage job offers where they'll hire anyone with a pulse, but unless your situation is dire you don't want those.

It all feels vaguely dystopic and depressing. The only consolation is that only now we realize what it felt for people outside our industry. We had it easy!

[bilsbie]

That seems like a good signal to track.

Btw does anyone ever get hired from the who wants to be hired thread?

[setgree]

The true ratio of would-be-hired to is-hired on HN is lower than 0.94. Many (most?) posts in the who's hiring thread mention multiple positions, e.g. the word "engineers", plural, occurs 91 times on the first page.

[jstx1]

Sure but the same consideration applies to previous months too and the point of the post was about the trend (being so much higher than usual), not about the actual value of the ratio (which on its own seems irrelevant and hard to interpret).

[Kranar]

Much like looking at an exchange rate between two currencies, what matters isn't the exact ratio at any one moment but how that ratio changes over time.

[burlesona]

I think you’d have to go further back to have better context, April 2021 was pretty frothy.

But yes, the job market has cooled dramatically.

[ed_balls]

in 2019 it was about 0.32

First who wants to be hired https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7685170

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1350A5KGgmGI3Ed-tC7MP...

[iLoveOncall]

There are quite a lot of people hiring which have multiple job postings though.

It doesn't invalidate that it is the highest but it doesn't mean that it's almost 1:1.

It also doesn't mean that those people are out of a job. My company is mandating RTO 3 days a week, that's a good reason to look for a new position, while still being employed.

[karaterobot]

I think it might invalidate it. At the very least it points out that this is really measuring the ratio of comments, not jobs and candidates.

[0xbadcafebee]

Yep. Large corporate (non-tech) job boards have hundreds of listings open for tech jobs

[dudul]

I have to say the amount of spam emails I'm getting from recruiters has decreased a lot - also I took a new job a few months ago so maybe I'm just being filtered out for now.

[23B1]

I'm a CRO/CGO – a suit. My biggest struggle with HN wants-to-be-hired threads is that I desperately want to work with small and midsize startups who are serious about growth – but most of the JDs are for technical jobs.

Besides the usual job boards, is anyone aware of a good place to connect with founders who want a healthy hockey stick and holistic, healthy growth?

[Tade0]

For a few months now, whenever I looked at the "Who is hiring?" thread I couldn't help but think "truly, who is?"

[ed_balls]

Here is the data from 2015 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1350A5KGgmGI3Ed-tC7MP...

Ratio Who wants to be hired?/Who is hiring?

2015 0,20

2016 0,21

2017 0,14

2018 0,10

2019 0,32

2020 0,44

2021 0,26

2022 0,40

2023 0,83

[willmeyers]

Doesn't the whoshiring threads get filled out throughout the week. Shouldn't a better analysis be done this weekend?

[soneca]

This happened last month too, a data analysis of Who Is Hiring one or two days after it is published with a pessimistic conclusion.

Then, one week later, you realize the number of posts is back to an ok level (even improving)

[mtnGoat]

I’ve always found the who’s hiring threads to be interesting. I don’t think all of those companies are actively hiring, but rather like to look like they are for some reason I don’t understand. My reasoning is two fold: I applied to some a couple years ago while job hunting and got worse response rate than most other sources. And some seem to be hiring for the same position for many months in a row. Though the second reason could be due to having extremely high set of requirements, but is usually a sign of a company to avoid in my experience.

[93po]

a few reasons to list job ad when not seriously hiring:

1. collect resumes for when you are hiring

2. to look like a healthy, growing company even if you aren't

3. to find people who are desperate who you can underpay (smaller owner-run companies are more guilty of this)

4. to lure in people with a more interesting job ad than what the company really needs, then try to convince the candidate to fill a position for a less desirable or lower paying job

[hollaur]

Many companies post jobs just for backlinks or to get more traffic to their site.

[giraffe_lady]

To placate overworked employees begging for relief.

[david927]

I was curious and wanted to put that same data together -- so thanks.

That curve looks terrible and yet it confirms what I expected.

[myth_drannon]

April was the lowest count for "Who is hiring" ever.

[wesnerm2]

This post is not valid because most companies post jobs in Hackernews after several days. In addition, the is-hiring post opened on April 3, 2023--a little over 24 hours ago.

As other people have noticed, April appeared to be the lowest month in new jobs, but the true numbers won't be evident until the month is over. The ratio will likely fall lower with the reasonable assumption that a greater proportion of people seeking work post earlier in the month than of companies seeking employees.

[richarddeasis]

I definitely regret not interviewing for jobs right away when I graduated a few months ago. At the moment I was thinking that in a few months the job market would still be hot.

A few months ago, recruiters were reaching out to me. I started applying last week and a single job posting would have more than 1k applicants which was not the case months ago.

On top of that, as a new grad, finding early career positions is difficult. Most of the opening are SR level.

[bumby]

Don’t be afraid to apply for jobs that are (slightly) outside your experience range. Often, these posts are “pie in the sky” wants, not hard requirements.

[siftrics]

You should be applying before you graduate, regardless of the status of the job market.