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Comment by tra3 | Hacker News Reader

I've been startled to find out that the global population is stabilizing or is actually reducing [0]. To me that means that any shortages that are apparent now (and Software Dev shortage has been trumpeted about for years) will continue into the future.

If you look at the demographics of US [1], you see that dip below the age of 30, so there are fewer folks coming online to take the jobs of the people retiring.

Of course there's immigration, various other methods to incentivize more people to join the IT sector, but ultimately it looks like there's fewer people to handle more work.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population see especially the projections in the side bar.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...

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I don't think population growth is a strong indicator of demand or supply for specialized services like SWEs.

For example, automation can remove one type of labor and increase the supply for services labor, like the combustion engine w/ agriculture. Also you can have increased demand by the popularization of new software interfaces, like smart phones or AR.

Completely agree with everything you're saying. I hesitated writing this because predictions of any sort are so hilariously wrong so much of the time.

Could be that Copilot achieves sentience tomorrow we hit singularity and all SWEs will be out of job.

Trucking industry has been slowly automating itself, if I was a truck driver I might start looking for something else (if I was young) but at least they can see it coming.

With a declining population, wouldn’t you expect less demand?

With a population both declining and aging, the supply of labor decreases faster than demand for it

Retirement means that the decline in demand lags a great deal behind the decline in supply.

If it's a global trend, immigration isn't going to fix that. At least, not in the long-term.

Not in the very long term but it will fix the issue atleast for the next 100.

Unfortunately, it also exacerbates the problem for other countries.

Unless remote anywhere becomes widespread. Then it is both other countries and US salaries.

But this is a skilled profession. How relevant is it that there are fewer young people in general?

Should we expect the number of top basketball players to stagnate as well?

I get that there's far more software jobs than Pro sports, but is it relevant that world population is coming down? You'd think perhaps something like the number of CS graduates might matter most.

I don't have enough data or insight, but the global trends seem like a good indicator.

More people are retiring than joining the workforce AND there's already a shortage, so my thinking is the shortage will continue to grow assuming the demand remains stable or grows.

In China, there are 10 people currently working for every retiree. By 2030 it will drop to 2 people per retiree.

I don't think there are more people retiring than entering the workforce in software specifically though, only because the field has grown significantly over the last 2 decades. 4 decades ago it was less common for people to study computing or computer science (many universities may not even have had the program).

Now, it's one of the most popular choices, and there are also many people entering the field without degrees (bootcamps and the awareness that software skills can be learned outside of a structured curriculum weren't so common over 10 years ago).

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