Even Tech Jobs are Not Safe

As profitable as technology companies are, it turns out no job is entirely safe from the pandemic.

It's not just technology startups that are seeing job cuts and layoffs. As working from home becomes the new normal, greater efficiency means companies are also realizing they can do without certain roles. What does it mean for the future of work?

As a LinkedIn editor recently summarized:

Many corporations that made decisions on their businesses at the start of the pandemic are realizing that these calls no longer apply to months but rather to years. 

While Facebook and Google can afford to invest in the future of Reliance Jio and India, that's a cold tech war play, it doesn't mean jobs at home are safe. Facebook is facing a boycott and has said that employees who leave Silicon Valley might be paid less. Google's advertising revenues are down with the massive hit to travel and hospitality, two of its main sectors for Ads.

With $4,000 dollar rents, you bet tech workers are leaving San Francisco. Leaving New York, the great exodus of 2020.

Well over 70,000 tech workers have lost their jobs since March, and it's a myth the technology sector has gone unscathed. As of late June, 2020, nearly 70,000 tech-startup employees world-wide had lost jobs since March, led by ventures in the transportation, financial and travel sectors, according to a report by U.K.-based brokerage BuyShares.co.uk.

LinkedIn Is Cutting Jobs

But what is the big news today? It's actually a lot closer to home.

Microsoft isn't just putting the brakes on corporate hiring at such lucrative owned companies as LinkedIn. It's transforming its workforce. Microsoft’s professional networking site LinkedIn will cut about 960 jobs, or 6% of its global workforce, as the coronavirus pandemic is having a sustained impact on demand for its recruitment products.

That's a lot of people who had pretty cushy jobs. Jobs will be cut across sales and hiring divisions of the group globally. Even white collar professionals won't be immune to the unemployment of the Great Shutdown and even in the 1st wave of the pandemic, the United States is in for a great reckoning of how long the recovery will actually take.

If you saw the stocks of BigTech, you'd think their people would be immune. That's not the way business works. LinkedIn that was acquired by Microsoft for over $26 Billion, isn't even immune to the new normal. 6% of its global workforce is a lot of jobs.

The way people look for work could also change in the economic recovery. California-based LinkedIn helps employers assess a candidate’s suitability for a role and employees use the platform to find new job, among other things. Even Robinhood, that has been wildly successful in 2020 with new customers, has to pivot.

“I want you to know these are the only layoffs we are planning,” Roslansky said in his message. Affected staff, who have not yet been told, would be able to keep company-issued cell phones, laptops, and recently purchased equipment to help them work from home while making career transitions, he said.

LinkedIn is helping 25 million people get back to work, however nearly 1,000 might be former employees! Even tech jobs aren't safe, and if you think about it, a high number of these recruiting (hiring division) and sales jobs are likely women. Women have already been harder hit given that the pandemic has been hardest on industries like travel, tourism, hospitality, leisure, SMB, and the restaurant business.

How to do Join the Great Recovery?

So, how do we think differently about the new normal? How to we have a recovery and pivot mentality given the unemployment crunch many of us are facing? I'm not seeing many answers to these questions on LinkedIn today, but hopefully we will be soon.

When a company has profitable as Microsoft is laying off tech sales and HR jobs, one has to wonder about the economic recovery. One of LinkedIn's mandates is to help those who have become unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis get the skills they need to land their next job. I was a bit surprised to see LinkedIn making cuts given its outstanding record with its employees.

Women in Tech Losing their Jobs is also part of the New Normal

LinkedIn is still awesome, it has digitally mapped 690M professionals, 50M companies, 11M job listings, 36K skills, and 90k schools on LinkedIn, to identify in-demand skills, emerging jobs, and global hiring patterns. These insights help LinkedIn connect their members to open opportunities. How can we find jobs and create opportunities again in our communities and our digitally connected world of new normals?

Technology is a circle. One has to imagine that LinkedIn’s business has been hit hard as companies lay off staff or sharply curtail hiring. There's less demand for LinkedIn's recruitment products. Women aren't just on the front lines of taking home work and home school together, they are on the front lines of losing their job in tech companies. Curiously, nobody is talking about it. Trust me, they will be.