I think that misreads the market. From what I can tell, the RTO efforts reduce headcount without layoffs and the costs with those. It's not as if these companies are hiring to replace the people not moving. RTO is about financials, IMHO.
I've been talking with people in the tech sector and getting hired is hard for far too many people. Remote or in-person.
I dont think that is a contradiction to the parent post.
It certainly seems like there is a shift in supply and demand. When getting hired is hard and you have mortgage payments due, how many people are willing or able to turn down offers because they are "WFH" only.
There's been a concerted effort to reset salary for tech workers in the past year or so, ever since Elon Musk kicked things off with the mass layoffs at Twitter. The default of Silicon Valley Bank didn't help, and neither did the VC money pulling back for all but AI.
One of the hidden chilling effect is Section 174. I don't know why it is such a big blind spot among tech workers. (Section 174 ruling means US companies can no longer expense software development, and must amortize it. That creates a significantly higher tax burden. It is driving companies to shed all but their best engineers, and drive AI adoption. I don't even know how startups are going to start up without enough capital to cover the higher taxes).
I've been talking with people in the tech sector and getting hired is hard for far too many people. Remote or in-person.