夜雨聆风
History is another reason for pause.
You may think that as economies become more tech-intensive, technology's rising share in total employment is an iron law of nature.
Yet for most of the 2000s that share in America, Australia, Britain and Canada hardly budged.
As late as 2006-07, as the rich world was inflating a financial bubble, tech hiring was soft.
AI was not to blame.
Then it was the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000 that held down job growth.
After that spectacular pop, many tech firms gradually ran out of money and had to close.
But by the middle of the decade other factors were in play, too.
To save money, companies outsourced more tasks to foreign IT consultancies like India's TCS and Infosys.
In addition, American interest rates began rising in late 2004.
Higher borrowing costs discouraged businesses from investing in software and computer equipment-in turn trimming demand for people who installed and managed it.
Techies' predicament today looks eerily similar.
Many firms went on a hiring binge during the covid-19 pandemic, when locked-down consumers were craving all things digital.
In 2022 interest rates started rising fast as central banks realised that pandemic-related inflation was not a seasonal cold but something more chronic; in 2023 growth in business investment in IT slowed sharply.
Firms again turned to outsourcing to save costs.
From 2021 to 2024 American imports of services related to cloud computing and data storage more than doubled.
Why employ someone on a Bay Area salary if you can get the same service from Bangalore for a quarter as much?
A subtler phenomenon is also in play.
Though many tech businesses have frozen hiring, other industries covet workers with tech skills.
American occupational data-looking at people who describe themselves as "software developers" and so on-suggest strong demand for tech workers.
Today 3.7% of people have tech-related occupations, up from 3.6% in November 2022.
A new paper by Leland Crane and Paul Soto of the Federal Reserve suggests firms' ranks of coders are growing more slowly than before the introduction of ChatGPT, but continue to grow nonetheless.
The non-AI economy-retailers, banks, manufacturers and others that still account for most rich-world jobs-are also hoping that AI could allow a single nerd to get more done.
But many such firms employ few nerds, leaving plenty of demand for tech skills.
From 2022 to 2025 the number of American computer and software workers grew by 12% in retail, 75% in property and nearly 100% in construction.
Tech jobs aren't going away.
They are spreading through the economy.
The route to riches used to run through Google or Meta.
Now a young coder might apply to Starbucks-and not as a barista.
重点解析：
consultancy n.咨询;咨询公司;专家咨询;
The project provides both consultancy and training.
这个项目既提供咨询服务也提供培训。
暂停思考的另一个原因是回顾历史。
你可能认为，随着经济变得更加技术密集，技术占总就业的比例上升，这是自然界的铁律。
然而在2000年代的大部分时间里，美国、澳大利亚、英国、加拿大的这一比例几乎没有变化。
直到2006和2007年，当富裕国家在吹大金融泡沫时，科技行业的招聘仍然疲软。
这总不能怪AI。
然后是2000年互联网泡沫破裂，抑制了就业增长。
在那次惊人的泡沫破裂之后，许多科技公司逐渐耗尽资金，只能倒闭。
但是到了2000年代中期，其他因素也开始发挥作用。
为了省钱，企业将更多任务外包给外国IT咨询公司，比如印度的塔塔咨询服务和印孚瑟斯。
此外，美国利率在2004年末开始上升。
更高的借贷成本抑制了企业对软件和计算机设备的投资，进而减少了对安装和管理这些设备的人员的需求。
科技工作者如今的困境看起来出奇地相似。
许多公司在新冠疫情期间疯狂招聘，封控时期的消费者渴望一切数字化产品。
2022年利率开始快速上升，因为各国央行意识到与疫情相关的通胀不是季节性感冒，而是更持久的问题，2023年IT领域的商业投资增长急剧放缓。
企业再次转向外包以节省成本。
2021年至2024年期间，美国与云计算和数据存储相关的服务进口额增长了一倍多。
如果你能从印度班加罗尔用四分之一的工资获得同样的服务，为什么还要雇佣一个拿湾区薪水的人呢？
一种更为微妙的现象也在起作用。
虽然许多科技企业已经冻结了招聘，但其他行业仍然渴求具备科技技能的员工。
美国的职业数据——关注自称是“软件开发人员”等的人群——表明对科技工作者的需求依然强劲。
如今，3.7%的人从事科技相关职业，高于2022年11月的3.6%。
美联储的利兰·克雷恩和保罗·索托发表的新论文指出，企业程序员数量的增长速度比ChatGPT发布之前有所放缓，但仍在持续增长。
非AI经济——零售、银行、制造业等仍占富裕国家大部分就业岗位的行业——同样希望AI能让一个技术员完成更多工作。
但是许多这类公司雇佣的技术员极少，因此对科技技能的需求仍然很大。
2022年至2025年期间，美国零售业的计算机和软件从业人员数量增长了12%，房地产行业的同类岗位数量增长了75%，建筑行业的增长幅度则接近100%。
科技工作不会消失。
而是会蔓延到经济的各个领域。
致富之路曾经通向谷歌或Meta。
如今年轻的程序员可能会申请星巴克的岗位，但不是去当咖啡师。
