The tech industry is changing. Unemployment rates are at historic lows, but they’re not the whole story. Tech companies are still hiring, but they’re also cutting jobs and forcing employees to take pay cuts due to a severe worker shortage.
The constant stream of layoffs has been going on for years, but recent reports show it’s beginning to hit home more strongly than ever before. What exactly do these layoffs mean for the future of the tech industry? In what ways can you prepare yourself for this change if it affects your job or career path in any way?
Microsoft is reportedly cutting another 11,000 jobs
This is the first round of layoffs for Microsoft this year and the third since 2022. The company has been cutting jobs for some time now, with quite a number of employees affected.
Amazon to lay off 18,000 staff
Earlier, Amazon disclosed letting go of 18,000 persons from its workforce. This would be the biggest layoff in company history and would affect thousands of employees.
The company’s stock price has fallen about 15 percent since October 2018–a drop that has been attributed in part to concerns about a slowdown in growth at Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is a major profit center for the e-commerce giant and accounts for 10 percent of its revenue annually. The cloud services unit saw revenue grow 38 percent year over year during Q4 2018 but missed analyst expectations by $1 billion due to higher than expected spending on data centers and other infrastructure projects related to its own products such as Alexa voice assistant devices.
Salesforce also announced cutting around 7,000 jobs
Salesforce announced in the first week of January laying off 7,000 jobs as it employed too many people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said it will eliminate about 10% of its workforce and close some offices as part of a restructuring plan aimed at helping Salesforce accelerate growth and increase investment in emerging technologies.
Not limited to the above, there’s been more layoffs.
Tech wages are rising and competition for talent is more fierce
Tech companies are competing for talent, and they’re paying more money than ever before. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median salary for software developers was $100k in 2017–that’s a lot of money! And because there’s such a shortage of tech talent right now (a statistic I’m sure you’ve heard before), this is an ideal time for anyone looking for work in the industry.
It’s still a job seekers market in tech
Tech companies are still hiring, but they are being more selective about who they bring on board. They want people with specific skills that can help them grow their business, and they’re willing to pay high salaries for those employees.
If you have the right skillset and experience, your chances of landing a job with a top-tier company are good–and even if you don’t get hired on as an employee, there is always freelance work available through sites like Upwork or Freelancer (or even LinkedIn).
This is the start of a long term trend as we see more automation and less need for humans
The future of the tech industry is bright, but not for humans. More automation will mean less need for human workers.
This means that there will be fewer tech jobs available as time goes on, and those jobs that do exist may require less experience than they used to because machines are doing more of the work now than ever before.
Conclusion
The next few years will be interesting to watch, as we see how Amazon, Microsoft and other tech giants respond to these layoffs. If they continue their current trend of cutting jobs, it could have a large impact on the industry’s future. It’s possible that companies will start automation first before making any major changes to human workers – but if this is the case then there is more potential for job losses than those outlined above.
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