If there's downward pressure on salaries in Software development, you're going to see two things that will counter-act this long-term:
1) An exodus of developers. Devs will be likely be leaving either as the result of fat getting trimmed or by transitioning into management and analysis roles that offer better career prospects.
2) Less "young blood". A big reason why everyone is pumped these days to learn to code is due to the career opportunities it provides: the great salary, the job perks, and working for companies that are perceived cool. Most aren't looking to become entrepreneurs. If software shops lose their charm and gains a reputation for long hours with mediocre pay, people will seek opportunity elsewhere.
I saw the same thing happen in the early '00s after the dotcom crash and the outsourcing craze. Startups became a punchline instead of an aspiration and everyone thought most of the world's code would be written in Bangalore. CS enrollment tanked. People lost their appetite for learning programming. But by '05 we were back into a "shortage" again after believing the first-world programmer had gone extinct.
But I'm not surprised business and political leaders think STEM workers are overpaid. The general attitude is that exceptional salaries should only be doled out to exceptional individuals - if you're just a mere mortal that's in demand, well, that's clearly just an inefficiency in the market.
1) An exodus of developers. Devs will be likely be leaving either as the result of fat getting trimmed or by transitioning into management and analysis roles that offer better career prospects.
2) Less "young blood". A big reason why everyone is pumped these days to learn to code is due to the career opportunities it provides: the great salary, the job perks, and working for companies that are perceived cool. Most aren't looking to become entrepreneurs. If software shops lose their charm and gains a reputation for long hours with mediocre pay, people will seek opportunity elsewhere.
I saw the same thing happen in the early '00s after the dotcom crash and the outsourcing craze. Startups became a punchline instead of an aspiration and everyone thought most of the world's code would be written in Bangalore. CS enrollment tanked. People lost their appetite for learning programming. But by '05 we were back into a "shortage" again after believing the first-world programmer had gone extinct.
But I'm not surprised business and political leaders think STEM workers are overpaid. The general attitude is that exceptional salaries should only be doled out to exceptional individuals - if you're just a mere mortal that's in demand, well, that's clearly just an inefficiency in the market.