The impact of layoffs and AI in the remote job market
Hey,
I'm Sergio Pereira, and this is the Remote Work newsletter 👋
Last week, I wrote about my plan to help 1000 people find a remote job, which I'm achieving through the Remote Jobs Braintrust, and soon through the Jobs Copilot too.
The main concern I hear from people in my DMs and who comment on my tweets, is if Remote Jobs are actually available in today's market.
People hear about mass layoffs, AI automation and return-to-office mandates, and they get scared. Rightfully so, those announcements are all over the news, and one can easily think that ALL companies are doing that.
That's far from true, fortunately. Some companies are doing layoffs and RTO, indeed, and those announcements get mainstream media coverage and trend on Twitter when they happen. Everyone sees them.
However, many other companies are hiring, and just continuing to grow their team in a remote culture. Those are silent, there's no announcement to make, they are simply running their "business-as-usual" operations, and those are companies you don't see or hear about.
Now that I'm developing the JobsCopilot, I have a database of ~400.000 companies, from which ~90.000 are in the tech sector.
I'm monitoring those 400.000 careers pages, and I'm now working hard on the matchmaking engine. To detect which of those thousands new jobs are the best fit for each of the users who sign up to the Jobs Copilot. It will soon be the best job search concierge in the world.
As I'm developing and testing my algorithms against this database of over 1 million jobs, I'm starting to draw some patterns from early data samples.
Early data suggests that:
• More than 50% of the companies in my DB have open positions on their website, which means above 1 million jobs available worldwide (in tech and beyond).
• 13.27% of these jobs are hybrid, meaning people must live near their employer's city, but can work from home at least once a week.
• 9.81% of all jobs available are fully remote, meaning people can work from home all the time.
• From these fully remote jobs, only ~14% are country/region specific (eg: US-only, EU-only, UK-only).
This early analysis suggests that about 8-9% of all job openings right now are fully remote. Meaning those companies hire employees across time zones.
This is my local console log from this morning's testing:
I'm pulling this data every few days for updates and new jobs, and I'm still working on the algorithms to clean the data and match it with users. But it proves that remote work is absolutely alive.
Btw, I'm working hard on this, and some of the 1000+ people on the waitlist have reached offering their help for free. I understand they are very much looking forward to using the product, and would be glad to help make that happen soon, which I found very kind.
I don't accept anyone working for me for free, not in this project and not in general. I'm not looking to hire for this project right now, but at some point I may hire a Software Engineer on a PAID freelance basis. In case you're interested just send me a DM on Twitter or Linkedin. I'm not looking right now, but I'll be back to you when I am.
My point with showing this early data is that remote jobs are real, and the reasons why so many people struggle to land their job are:
- Layoffs have brought lots of people to the market, many of them from Big Tech, with very attractive CVs. Those people are applying to the same jobs as you are, which makes them more competitive to get.
- Many jobs aren't "visible" for most candidates. They are from unknown companies who don't use popular job boards. Since most candidates just scroll for jobs on popular job boards, they won't find most of the opportunities.
- Many candidates don't have the time and energy to apply to a large number of jobs. I see this in the Remote Jobs Braintrust, some people apply to like 10 jobs per month, and wonder why they don't get interviews. Applying to remote jobs is a tight funnel, with thousands of people around the world competing for the same opportunities.
I'm working hard to help people overcome these barriers and fulfill their career ambitions. Last week I announced new live sessions on the Remote Jobs Braintrust, where we are approaching 150 community members on Slack.
I'm also working hard to finish the JobsCopilot.ai, and launch it in early April. I'm super pumped to get it on the hands of these 1000+ pioneers on the waitlist, and roll with their feedback. Exciting times!
Thanks for reading this newsletter until the end. You can read all past editions here. Make sure to share it with your friends and colleagues so they can read it too.
If you're interested in sponsoring this newsletter, send me an email or DM.
See you next Friday,
Sergio Pereira,
Startup CTO & Remote Work Lover
