Yes! Even though it's only a tax rule for USA, it somehow applied for the whole world! Thats how mighty the US is!

Or could it be, after the growth and build, we are in maintenance mode and we need less people?

Just food for thought

Yes, because US big tech have regional offices in loads of other countries too, fired loads of those developers at the same time and so the US job market collapse affected everyone.

And since then there's been a constant doom and gloom narrative even before AI started.

Probably also end of ZIRP and some “AI washing” to give the illusion of progress