> It seems basically impossible for everyone to have overhired, for the simple reason that qualified workers do not appear and disappear from nowhere.

Not everyone, but it go through the roof, or at least it did in my country. I know a lot of people who doubled or even tripled their salary during that time as these companies went absolutely ape shit. They were getting 50k increases with each position change. I've not seen anything like it before, and I honestly wonder if i'll ever see anything like it again. Kinda wish i'd been in the job market at the time, but I was off with health issues sadly so missed that boom.

> So, if someone overhired then someone else must have done without, all things considered.

They did? Again, at least in my country. Smaller shops felt the pain, as tons of people left for the pastures of big tech.

> Small businesses have been identified as the biggest losers of the 2020–2022 explosion in big tech hiring. While demand for digital transformation grew to previously unseen levels, smaller firms and businesses were severely disadvantaged by intense competition from large companies for talent, resulting in a multi-year skills shortage where less than 50% of small business vacancies were filled, compared to 65% for large firms