Some blame AI, some blame the Covid era growth of IT jobs: The Computer Science Bubble is Bursting
We just went through explosive growth of tech jobs during the Covid era and an expansion of work from home, online ordering of products and services, Zoom calls and more – all of which expanded the tech sector. Now, post Covid, many companies may be bloated. Simultaneously, the industry is on the verge of new inflection points – the adoption of AI and perhaps quantum computing. There will be much turmoil in the industry as these changes propagate through organizations.
Another possible issue is a change in tax law made a few years go. Used to be, if you spent $1M to create software that sold for $1 million during the year, you paid taxes on the sales minus the costs – or $0. However, the tax law was changed and now software development costs are to be written off over 5 years. Thus, instead of $1 million “cost”, you can only deduct $200,000 of that cost each year. Over a period of five years, it cumulatively works out, but in the short term you now owe taxes you didn’t owe previously (on the flip side, the overall corporate tax rate was reduced at the same time). Basically, software development is not written off over a five-year period instead of one year: Defining software development costs. This may have resulted in some layoffs.
Do those with History Degrees out earn those with STEM degrees?
The article cites Deming’s 2019 research which makes a claim that males with an undergrad degree in history will out earn those with STEM degrees.
Deming’s research shows that male history and social-science majors end up out-earning their engineering and comp-sci counterparts in the long term, as they develop the soft skills that employers consistently seek out. “It’s actually quite risky to go to school to learn a trade or a particular skill, because you don’t know what the future holds,” Deming told me. “You need to try to think about acquiring a skill set that’s going to be future-proof and last you for 45 years of working life.”
But there seems to be a sleight of hand in this work …. here’s the original paper: https://archive.is/BiVLO
Deming blames tech salary issues (he uses the term STEM but seems to mean “software”) on age discrimination over 40 and rapid skill obsolescence due to rapid change (especially in software) and that many people in software (about half) have left doing tech work by age 40 – and (he leaves this out) move on to management, program management, marketing, finance and other business functionsm, or leave to go into other businesses. A high percent of engineering grads on the east coast never work in engineering – but go to work in banking/investment finance due to their math skills.
He says history majors have gone on to fields like business (likely after an MBA and are now working in marketing/finance/executive positions) and law (which means a JD degree and not just a history major background).
His sleight of hand is he is combining MBA and JD grads with all history majors because they had an undergrad degree in history.
A fair comparison would be to look at salaries of engineers who have an MBA or a JD degree. Or just compare those with undergrad/grad degrees in history with those who have undergrad/grad degrees in engineering. But he does not do that.
Deming’s claims received A LOT of media attention in 2019. He seems to advocate that people go in to history and other “soft subjects” for career longevity – but then who would build our technology solutions including high tech, spaceships, communications networks, power grids, civil infrastructure, and more that is built on engineering? History majors are generally not hired to design aircraft or develop communications protocols and networks or design CPUs.
The article is written by a 24-year-old graduate of Yale, in history and before that she attended the exclusive and private Phillips Exeter Academy (2025-2026 tuition). In other words, likely an elite from wealth.
Opinion comment
Must be nice not to have had to work since age 10, saving your money for college, and having to pay for all your own tuition, fees and books, and living at home the first 2 years, riding a bike to the local public college to save money … working half time while in college, and buying your own used car so you could transfer to another public university eventually – some of us had to choose majors based on employability and earnings...
