For years, tech firms were fighting a war for talent. Now they are waging war on talent.

In the years immediately following the dot-com meltdown, there was more tech labor than there were tech jobs. That didn’t last long. By 2005, the tech economy had bounced back on its own. After that, the emergence of mobile (a new and lucrative category of tech) plus low interest rate policy by central banks fueled demand for tech. Before the first decade of the century was out, “tech labor…