Comment by otterley

> Microsoft has laid off thousands of workers this year alone.

If I lay off experienced buggy whip makers because the market for horse-drawn buggies is shrinking, and I need to hire experienced aluminum workers instead to meet my customers' demands, it doesn't necessarily mean I can hire the buggy whip makers back for that job. Labor is not necessarily substitutable like that. Not even software developers.

It's also worth noting that companies often use layoffs as a way to efficiently trim the worst-performing labor cohort. They don't do it because they want to hire cheaper labor; it's because they want to let these workers go without the overhead of going through the formal termination process for each one individually.

> There's no shortage of qualified US tech workers.

This statement is so broad it's difficult to evaluate. There might be plenty of US tech workers, and there might be a surplus of US tech workers qualified for some job, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are qualified for the specific job openings.

Speaking from my own experience, my team is hiring several senior SREs, and we're not seeing a flood of qualified candidates. We get a flood of resumes, but the signal to noise ratio is low. The candidates' CVs claim the requisite qualifications, but when we actually evaluate the candidates for role fit, we are finding that their actual skills aren't those we need for success in these roles.