Employment for computer programmers in the U.S. has plummeted to its lowest level since 1980—years before the internet existed

A young boy looks at two dual computer monitors (Credit: Getty Images)

• Computer-programming employment in the U.S. has reached its lowest level since 1980, according to data from the Current Population Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The fall correlates with the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Buy now-pay later firm Klarna froze hiring last year after partnering with OpenAI on a chatbot that it claimed did the work of 700 full-time employees.

There are now fewer computer programmers in the U.S. than there were when Pac-Man was first invented—years before the internet existed as we know it. Computer-programmer employment dropped to its lowest level since 1980, the Washington Post reported, using data from the Current Population Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There were more than 300,000 computer-programming jobs in 1980. The number peaked above 700,000 during the dot-com boom of the early 2000s but employment opportunities have withered to about half that today. U.S. employment grew nearly 75% in that 45-year period, according to the Post.