Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby Job Trends on Indeed.com
Every once in a while I check out indeed.com to see how Perl is doing vs. other languages like PHP, Python and Ruby in the job market. There's a worrysome trend lately - I'll let the graph speak for itself.
Mess with the graph yourself on Indeed.com
What do you make of this?
I'm an ex-particle physicist working as a Perl developer at LiquidWeb. I also do other programmy things. I like the movie The Jerk, and the shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dr. Who.
Hi Bryan
My first thought was the deteriorating world (inc Australian) economy reducing the # of jobs.
If the data was somehow scaled to take that into account, and still showed a decline, I'd be even more worried...
Cheers
Ron
The other languages seem to have hit a plateau. Perl had a shallower slope to begin with, so instead of going flat, it's now negative. Perl's still at a decent level, on par with PHP and still above Python and Ruby. Maybe the trend will change once it reaches a certain point?
Good points, especially about everything declining near the end (like Dr. Feynman said, never trust anything near the edge of a graph). What worries me more is the downward trend in Perl starting before Jan '11. You'd think with Moose and all Perl adoption would improve not get worse. Will be interesting to see what happens over the next six months.
The graph for C++ has ups and downs in almost the same places as the one for Perl:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Perl%2C+c%2B%2B&l=
Same trend for Java, too.
The indeed.com graphs show the demand side, i.e. number of job openings/offers. To get a better picture (e.g. to gauge whether a language is worth learning for getting jobs), how about graphs showing the supply side, say from odesk.com?
A search on odesk shows 584 for Perl, 883 for Python, 997 for Ruby, and 9191 for PHP. So judging from that numbers, I'd say a Perl programmer is still relatively very high in demand.
I don't think I can take plain numbers of job postings seriously.
Anecdata, but in .ie it is common for recruitment agencies to post fake ads just to get you on the books. I would imagine they use lists like tiobe to cast as wide a net as possible. Some postings may be real, but I was left scratching my head when I was mailed a spec looking for experience with the "agile waterfall"
How is this not illegal? No idea, I think the only laws here governing job postings refer to equality.
Yeah the numbers themselves are of course suspect. The trend may be meaningful though. Maybe all perl devs have moved to jQuery (lol) http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=perl%2C+jquery&l=