Wither the Software Developer?

The employment market for software developers sucks right now. ADP released a study from their payroll data in June, 2024 that included this graph.

It hasn't got better since. But why the severe and persistent decline?

• The decline begins in Spring 2020 so responding to the COVID-19 pandemic could be a cause. But this does not explain why the decline continues.
• The growth of AI is making them so much more efficient that you need fewer of them. But this may only explain maybe the last two years or so.
• The growth of cloud computing means that much of what software engineers do is outsourced to a supplier that can eke out economies of scale in software development. With Software as a Service (SaaS), code can span multiple enterprises instead of being used solely in-house. 

Evidence for this last explanation comes from the timing of cloud computing adoption.

Whichever the cause, I think a takeaway is that all explanations will persist and the market may not rebound very soon.