Brittany Luce

And I remember that for a long time, there was a common refrain that some people parroted to newly unemployed folks like myself as soon as they could.

Learn to code.

I heard these words all the time, like there was an idea that getting a coding job in tech was your one-way ticket out of desperation and into the good life.

And this wasn't just true for people already in the workforce.

STEM education became a priority for both K-12 and colleges.

But today, learn to code holds almost no weight.

The tech industry is hemorrhaging jobs.

According to one estimate, there have been over 700,000 tech workers laid off since 2022.

And according to the Federal Reserve's data released last year, the unemployment rate for computer science grads was double that of art history majors in 2023.

But this all has me thinking, how did we get here?

And if a cushy position in tech isn't the quote unquote good job anymore, what is?

I'm joined by Raya Jetta, tech culture reporter for the San Francisco Standard.

Thanks for having us.

And Natasha Singer, technology reporter for the New York Times and author of the upcoming book, Coding Kids, Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools.

Thanks so much for having us.

Hello, hello.

I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

We got to talk about what's going on with tech jobs.

There have been a lot of layoffs in the past few years.

Tech companies are getting leaner and leaner.