Genuine question, why offshoring is an issue now but not in 2020-2022? /u/VegetableChemistry67 CSCQ protests reddit

Browsing reddit I have seen many say that offshoring is what’s killing the Tech market. However offshoring was always there along with H1Bs as long as I remember, even when companies needed a lot of SWE back in 2020-2022 we were still employed, I even worked in a company where we had some teams offshore and others on H1B back then.

Now I’m not trying to bring up any political or racist topics, I’m genuinely asking why offshoring or H1B is an issue now? knowing that companies had that option for at least two decades and it didn’t kill the market.

Personally, as I have written in some comments in this sub, I see the issue in uncertainty. Companies don’t know what’s the new administration going to change, and they are also uncertain if the AI is actually going to replace us or no.

Playing the devil’s advocate here, companies have nothing to lose by laying off people now, and I’m saying this as someone who has been laid off a few months ago with no job lined up. They know the market is saturated with great engineers from all levels, seniors with Big Tech names in their resumes, juniors who graduated in the past two years. They know in a scenario where AI is nowhere to replace us, they can always rehire us and probably with way less pay than what we used to get, you know… because we are unemployed.

Trust me, I hate this situation and I said I’m unemployed and running out of savings, but I’m trying to see where the Tech is headed and even considering a career change after close to 10 years in this field if this situation lasts longer.

Browsing reddit I have seen many say that offshoring is what’s killing the Tech market. However offshoring was always there along with H1Bs as long as I remember, even when companies needed a lot of SWE back in 2020-2022 we were still employed, I even worked in a company where we had some teams offshore and others on H1B back then.

Now I’m not trying to bring up any political or racist topics, I’m genuinely asking why offshoring or H1B is an issue now? knowing that companies had that option for at least two decades and it didn’t kill the market.

Personally, as I have written in some comments in this sub, I see the issue in uncertainty. Companies don’t know what’s the new administration going to change, and they are also uncertain if the AI is actually going to replace us or no.

Playing the devil’s advocate here, companies have nothing to lose by laying off people now, and I’m saying this as someone who has been laid off a few months ago with no job lined up. They know the market is saturated with great engineers from all levels, seniors with Big Tech names in their resumes, juniors who graduated in the past two years. They know in a scenario where AI is nowhere to replace us, they can always rehire us and probably with way less pay than what we used to get, you know… because we are unemployed.

Trust me, I hate this situation and I said I’m unemployed and running out of savings, but I’m trying to see where the Tech is headed and even considering a career change after close to 10 years in this field if this situation lasts longer.