[topocite]

I just don't agree with this at all.

Right now is the good time for the job market. The S&P is at an all time high.

In the next recession, I expect massive layoffs in white collar work and there is no way those jobs are coming back on the other side.

40-50% of US white collar work hours are spent on procedural, rules-based tasks. Then another large chunk is managing the people doing procedural, rules-based tasks and support of people doing rules based tasks. Salary and benefits are 50% of operating costs for most business.

Maybe you do something really interesting and unique but that is just not what most white collar workers in the US are doing.

I know for myself, these are the final days of white collar work before I am unemployable as a white collar worker. I don't think the company I work for will exist either in 5 years. It is not a matter of Claude code being able to update a legacy system or not. It is that the tide hasn't really gone out in 15 years and all these zombie companies are going to get wiped out at the same time AI is automating the white collar jobs. Delaying the business cycle from clearing over and over is not a free lunch, it is a bill that has been stacking up for a long time.

On the other side, the business as usual of today won't be an option.

From my own white collar experience, I think if you view procedural rules-based tasks as a graph, the automation of any one task depends so much on other tasks being automated. So it will seem like the automation is not working but at some point you get a contagion of automation. Then so much automation will happen at once.