An employer market

Save for a few minor blips such as COVID, the last 10 years have largely been employee markets in tech. Employers raced to increase compensation and benefits in order to recruit and retain the best talent.

We’ve seen free lunches turn into full on fine dining spreads. Tech salaries have outgrown inflation by a large margin. Summer Fridays have turned into complete weeks off to "recharge”. Companies have gone fully remote and some have explored with a 4 day work week.

While work-life balance is important, I think we’ve seen quite a bit of employee privilege over the last few years, especially in the post-pandemic life. Employees were demanding more and companies were appeasing these employee demands in order to not lose talent.

Enter the 2022 recession and I believe we will start to see this completely flip. Employers are well aware of quiet quitters and that they have quite a bit of “fat to trim”. Boards and markets are dictating a stricter environment where goals and spending will be under greater scrutiny.

While I still expect tech employees to command high salaries and great benefits, I think we’ll see a significant clamp down going into Q4 and 2023 with companies putting their foot down.