Latest news with #SteveLevine
Wall Street Journal
18-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
The ‘Great Hesitation' That's Making It Harder to Get a Tech Job
The uncertain economic climate is adding to tech workers' woes. Those who have jobs are staying put, trying to figure out how they can stay relevant with the pivot to artificial intelligence and continued threat of layoffs. Those job hunting are finding recruiters insisting salary expectations be divulged in the first phone call, job postings pulled at the last minute and bots ruling out their résumé before it lands in front of a human. Companies are prolonging their hiring processes, leveraging contract workers or holding out for candidates who check every single box—and then some. 'It's the great hesitation,' says George Denlinger, operational president of U.S. technology talent solutions with staffing firm Robert Half. 'The hiring process might be two to three times longer than it was a year ago.' During times of uncertainty, companies are gun-shy: They take their time, fill only critical roles and raise the bar for hiring, Denlinger says. They previously might have required six or seven different skills for a given role but now may want 10 or 12, 'and those skills are associated with things that align with AI,' he adds. 'There are a lot of jobs, but there are more people looking,' says Steve Levine, a 54-year-old on Long Island, N.Y., who was recently laid off. 'Lots of things that I've applied for and targeted that I'm very qualified for, I don't get any response.' Levine has applied for around 50 sales-engineering and solutions-consultant jobs since January. He recently made it to the final round with one company and had to deliver a presentation in front of a panel, only to be told the company had decided not to fill the role, citing changing priorities. It's not you, it's us, he says they told him. Employment in technology fields across all sectors fell by around 214,000 jobs in April, according to tech trade association CompTIA, which analyzes data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The tech unemployment rate dropped to 4.6% from 5% the month before, according to the BLS data. But 5% to 6% of unemployed IT professionals left the sector in that period, says Victor Janulaitis, chief executive of Janco Associates. Tech companies continue to trim head count, putting fresh talent back on the market: Microsoft last week shed around 6,000 jobs. 'It's much more than the Amazons and the Googles,' says Janulaitis. 'It's all the midsize companies where there's an IT department of 20 to 100 people.' Janulaitis, who analyzes BLS data, says there has been 'shrinkage' in the size of the IT job market and that early-career coders have been hit especially hard because much of what they do can now be done by AI. 'A job that has been eliminated from almost all IT departments is an entry-level IT programmer, an IT analyst, someone who has got a degree in computer science,' he says. Companies have also shifted enormous resources to AI, leading to cost-cutting elsewhere. That increases demand for related capabilities, with nearly 1 in 4 jobs posted so far this year requiring AI skills. More CEOs are declaring their companies AI-first: Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn recently wrote in a company email that head count will be approved only if a team can't automate more of its work and that AI use will be considered during performance reviews. A recent survey of more than 250 technology leaders by Robert Half found that 76% reported a skills gap in their department. And 65% said they were increasing the number of contract hires this year. 'People that have advanced technical degrees are not getting responses from companies,' says Angela Jiang, who is working in San Francisco on a startup exploring the impact of AI on the labor market. Jiang worked at OpenAI until late last year, and recently held one-on-one meetings with more than 50 tech workers to answer their questions about how to stand out in the current job market. (There is a wait-list with 118 more people.) One software engineer with a masters in computer science lamented that he wasn't landing interviews; others wanted to know how to leverage their background to be effective in an AI-related role, and what more they needed to learn to be marketable. 'People are just scared,' she says. 'They don't know where they fit in this new world.' While senior engineers are still in high demand, companies have adjusted their expectations of them with respect to performance and seniority, according to Sophie Novati, founder of Formation, a job-placement and fellowship company for engineers. 'They are responsible for ensuring whatever code is being generated by this AI is going to meet the requirements of the organization,' she says. William Wilkerson, 32, was laid off last month from his job as a software engineer with Automattic, the company that owns WordPress and Tumblr. He is doing contract work while job hunting. He has noticed an uptick in roles looking for someone who can integrate generative-AI workflows and tools, and a noticeable dearth of midlevel job openings. Even with AI experience—he says he built AI software to determine whether a piece of content was suitable to have ads next to it—Wilkerson worries about the odds of getting his résumé in front of a person because AI systems in many cases have replaced human review. 'If you don't provide the correct little buzzwords, you're not going to get to the next step,' he says. Over the past eight years, hiring of AI talent has increased by 640% in the U.S., according to data from LinkedIn. Annie Murray, who advises tech workers on compensation negotiations, says the only people who seem immune to the current conditions are data scientists and researchers in the AI space, and especially those with Ph.D.s. The lopsided supply and demand is leading to harsher tactics among recruiting teams: Candidates can no longer push off sharing their salary requirements at the earliest stages. 'Companies will not take no for an answer for that question,' says Murray. 'The reason they're doing it is to weed folks out if they're too expensive.' Write to Katherine Bindley at
Business Wire
29-04-2025
- Health
- Business Wire
Compass Pathways Establishes Strategic Collaboration with HealthPort to Inform the Potential Delivery of COMP360 Synthesized Psilocybin Treatment in Underserved Communities
LONDON & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Compass Pathways plc (Nasdaq: CMPS), a biotechnology company dedicated to accelerating patient access to evidence-based innovation announced today it is entering into a strategic collaboration with HealthPort, a multi-site comprehensive community health organization. HealthPort employs an integrated model centered around social determinants of health and this collaboration will help inform the potential delivery of COMP360 synthesized psilocybin treatment in underserved communities, if FDA approved. This agreement with HealthPort expands the set of collaborations that Compass has established representing a broad spectrum of settings where people living with treatment resistant depression (TRD) receive their care in the United States. HealthPort offers an integrated model of care aimed at helping those with behavioral health conditions and people impacted by poverty, disability and trauma. HealthPort is an evidence-based practice supporting thirteen dimensions of social determinants of health, including the coordination of an integrated outpatient mental health and addictions health clinic. HealthPort has been operating facility, residential, and mobile based interventions of care in the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland for the past 45 years. Together, Compass and HealthPort will learn about the challenges and barriers to equitable access to new mental health treatments and they will conduct research into training and care reimbursement processes for COMP360, if approved. The companies will explore how investigational COMP360 synthesized psilocybin treatment might fit into an integrated health delivery practice similar to HealthPort. This exploration is designed to provide a template for potential future implementation and delivery of COMP360 within community care settings across the US. COMP360 is a synthesized, proprietary formulation of psilocybin under investigation as a treatment for certain difficult-to-treat mental health conditions, including treatment resistant depression (TRD). 'We are proud to collaborate with Compass Pathways and to contribute to learning how COMP360 psilocybin treatment may be most effectively delivered to patients in underserved communities, if that treatment receives all necessary approvals for TRD,' said Dimitrios Cavathas, CEO of HealthPort. 'We are committed to addressing the social determinants of health that impact our community members and collaborating with Compass will help further our mission to serving the unique needs of our people.' 'We strive to improve mental healthcare for every person who needs help, and we recognize the challenges to access for underserved populations and the potential for innovative treatments, such as COMP360, to lessen existing disparities, if approved,' said Steve Levine, Chief Patient Officer of Compass Pathways. 'We are thrilled to join forces with a leading integrated community health center, such as HealthPort, to further refine our understanding of how COMP360 psilocybin treatment could be delivered to patients in the future and, together, advance equitable access to mental healthcare.' About Compass Pathways' strategic collaborations Compass is forming a comprehensive and diverse set of collaborations to inform how investigative COMP360 synthesized psilocybin treatment can be integrated into different types of healthcare delivery systems in the US. Compass also has previously announced collaboration agreements with Greenbrook TMS, a leading provider of interventional psychiatric treatments such as Spravato and transcranial magnetic stimulation; Hackensack Meridian Health, a leading not-for-profit health care organization and the largest, most comprehensive and truly integrated network in New Jersey, addressing the full continuum of care for people living with TRD; Reliant Medical Group, an Optum company and integrated primary and specialty care organization; Journey Clinical, a leading psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy platform in the US; and Mindful Health Solutions, one of the US's leading providers of innovative behavioral health care. About Compass Pathways Compass Pathways plc (Nasdaq: CMPS) is a biotechnology company dedicated to accelerating patient access to evidence-based innovation in mental health. We are motivated by the need to find better ways to help and empower people with serious mental health conditions who are not helped by existing treatments. We are pioneering a new paradigm for treating mental health conditions focused on rapid and durable responses through the development of our investigational COMP360 synthesized psilocybin treatment, potentially a first in class treatment. COMP360 has Breakthrough Therapy designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and has received Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway (ILAP) designation in the UK for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Compass is headquartered in London, UK, with offices in New York and San Francisco in the US. We envision a world where mental health means not just the absence of illness but the ability to thrive. Forward-looking statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as 'may', 'might', 'will', 'could', 'should', 'expect', 'intend', 'plan', 'believe', 'estimate', 'predict', 'possible', 'potential' and 'ongoing,' or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements include express or implied statements relating to, among other things, the safety or efficacy of investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment as a treatment for treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or anorexia nervosa, the potential for the pivotal phase 3 program or other trials to support regulatory filings and approvals, Compass's business strategy and goals, Compass's plans, expectations and ability to achieve its goals related to this strategic collaboration agreement and its other collaborations; Compass's ability to continue to advance its research, obtain regulatory approval or develop plans to bring investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment to patients, and Compass's expectations regarding the benefits of its investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment. The forward-looking statements in this press release are neither promises nor guarantees, and you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond Compass's control and which could cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties, and other factors include, among others: clinical development is lengthy and outcomes are uncertain, and therefore Compass's clinical trials may be delayed or terminated; the results early-stage clinical trials of investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment may not be predictive of the results of later stage clinical trials; the possibility of unfavorable results from additional clinical trials of investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment or from subsequent analysis of existing data or new data received from additional ongoing and future studies of investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment; Compass's efforts to obtain marketing approval from the applicable regulatory authorities in any jurisdiction for investigational COMP360 or any of future product candidates may be unsuccessful; Compass's efforts to obtain coverage and reimbursement for its investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment, if approved, may be unsuccessful; the risk that this collaboration with HealthPort or one or more of our previously announced collaborations will not continue or will not achieve the expected benefits; uncertainties regarding the ability to develop a scalable and cost-effective delivery model for investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment, if approved; the risk that market adoption and access to investigational COMP360 psilocybin treatment, if approved, may be limited and those risks and uncertainties described under the heading 'Risk Factors' in Compass's most recent annual report on Form 10-K or quarterly report on Form 10-Q and in other reports we have filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC'), which are available on the SEC's website at Except as required by law, Compass disclaims any intention or responsibility for updating or revising any forward-looking statements contained in this press release in the event of new information, future developments or otherwise. These forward-looking statements are based on Compass's current expectations and speak only as of the date hereof.
