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Employment for computer programmers in the U.S. has plummeted to its lowest level since 1980—years before the internet existed (www.yahoo.com)

submitted 3 months ago by Amoxtli@thelemmy.club to c/economy@lemmy.world

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[–] gadfly1999@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Main takeaway from the article:

Computer programmers are different from software developers, who liaise between programmers and engineers and design bespoke solutions—a much more diverse set of responsibilities compared to programmers, who mostly carry out the coding work directly. Software development jobs are expected to grow 17% from 2023 to 2033, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau meanwhile projectsabout a 10% decline in computer programming employment opportunities from 2023 to 2033.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't get it, it's not clear to me at all how they are drawing the line. From the bls.gov website, the definitions of the two professions are:

Software developers design computer applications or programs.

Computer programmers write, modify, and test code and scripts that allow computer software and applications to function properly.

So what kind of job would be considered a software developer, vs what kind of job would be considered a programmer, if they are both writing software, from the perspective of the people putting together these statistics?

[–] gadfly1999@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

In over 30 years in software development, I’ve only seen “programmer” jobs in government, usually using long-dead tech and with published salaries in the $30-40k range. Private employers in industry know that you’re not going to hire anyone by labeling your open position as a programmer. It’s no surprise the position is dying. The article is much ado about nothing.

To answer your question: back in maybe the 1950s to 1970s, an engineer of some sort might “design” a software program, specifying algorithms and dataflows and that sort of thing. The that design would be handed off to programmers to implement in code in Cobol or Fortran or whatever. The division being that the engineering side is more professional, skilled, autonomous, etc. Hence the stigma on “programmers”

The “software developer” role arose from industry trends where the people doing the design of software were generally the ones also implementing the code. Calling that work “engineering” is a gray area where in some jurisdictions it may be illegal to call yourself an engineer with the proper state licensing. I am not aware of this being enforced much at all in the software field.

[–] abscond@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Tl;Dr, the government distinguishes between "programmers" and "developers." There are many more developers than programmers, and the number of programmers has dropped dramatically since ChatGPT showed up, while the number of developers has dropped slightly.