Are any programming jobs available? I remember going thru this after 9/11 in NYC, even during the 2008 recession. I've switched languages dozens of times, and I can program in most (even vb!), but now I'm doing pl/sql part time. Are we all experiencing the drought or is it just me?

I've seen a decrease in spending on my regular clients and a decrease in new client prospects/inquiries over the last year and a half compared to previous few years.

Might be interest rates

very likely, economy is slowing down a bit

It's harder to borrow money now

There are still opportunities, just have to look a little harder and put more effort into distinguishing yourself

I had a job interview with a company in Tower 2 on 9/12. I was headed to the airport on 9/11. I remember that day well.

I was driving down the LIE and I heard Howard Stern saying there's a plane hitting the towers, so I turned around and went home. I bought a couple cases of Waters and passed them out at ground zero though I was contracting at the NYSE

As for spending, the whole industry is seeing a massive downturn. Inflation, global geo-political instability, the surge of AI, its all making for one big mess.

I guess I'll be famous on tiktok

The older ones amongst us saw this around 2001 when the dot-com bubble burst and there were massive layoffs in tech (Macromedia let go around a quarter of their IT folks in a single day -- I certainly remember that day!). In reality, what was really happening was a "reset" to normality: IT had become a white-hot industry with ridiculous amounts of money being thrown at it, and companies hiring like crazy (signing bonuses were often $20k or even a new BMW 3 Series... I'm looking at you, Palm!). Everything went back to pre-bubble levels for a while. Sanity in the industry was (somewhat) restored. This latest contraction is very similar: many tech companies -- especially the larger one -- have been massively over-hiring because they had money to burn, and then the money stream goes back to "normal" and the companies simply dump their surplus staff in response. This is why I hate the whole VC ecosystem and "Big Tech" in general: it all seems great when things are expanding, but it's out of touch with economic reality, and then everything contracts again. It does not make for a very stable industry. Years ago (OK, decades ago), before all this "ooh shiny" VC nonsense, you could join a tech-heavy company and have an entire career there if you wanted. I have friends who worked at places like IBM and HP for literally decades. The industry used to be really stable. Remember also that (big) tech companies colluded on salaries and non-compete agreements after the dot-com bubble burst -- I was part of a class action settlement against Macromedia/Adobe and many others in the Bay Area, and received several thousand dollars in compensation once the suit was handled. It's not exactly a healthy employment industry...

I stayed mostly as a web hosting company mostly doing WordPress sites by the thousands. With a couple CF and c# and rarely python

There's a slow down. I see it everywhere. My buddy that runs a bottle shop says his sales are down 25% this month. Prices are skyrocketing on everything, globally. A lot of uncertainty. Jobs are there, but you need to work to get in. Look for industries and areas which are a bit more insulated, like government. Pay will be lower, but the opps are there. TBH Adobe is still hiring steadily, and we've not done a mass layoff.

I'm contacting from a nuclear power plant