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They See the Stars:

but do not see the Light!?

A Little History - in Cartoons

Fast Forward:

GeekWire: Paul Malhi, a senior director at recruiting company?TalentReach , is seeing this trend play out. He said employers are placing a premium on specific skills and expertise, especially in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and cybersecurity.

That creates challenges for seasoned professionals, Malhi said, as they may struggle to meet rapidly evolving skill requirements or encounter?ageism .

Another notable trend: as companies look to increase efficiency, middle managers are making up a larger percentage of layoffs,?Bloomberg ?reported this week, citing?Live Data Technologies . “Middle managers may appear more often in the crosshairs because of their higher salaries and their less direct contributions to completing projects or tasks, such as coding,”?LinkedIn News ?noted.

Last year, VC-backed startups prioritized individual contributor additions over manager-level hires, according to data from equity management platform?Carta .

Carta: Startups were still hiring last year, but their priorities shifted. Employees in engineering, sales, and operations made up a larger portion of all new hires, while job functions in customer success, support, and product accounted for a smaller portion of new hires than they did in the past. Compensation strategies shifted, too: Newly hired entry-level workers and C-suite leaders both saw their average salary levels increase during 2023, while new managers and VPs saw their average salaries decline.?

At Carta, we believe it’s our responsibility to share the insights that come from an unmatched amount of data about the private market. The data below comes from thousands of CTC customers with over 500,000 data points used by Carta Total Compensation. Other metrics in the report, such as those that describe employee movement, derive from the aggregate pool of more than 1 million employees currently working for the 43,000 startups that use Carta to manage their cap tables.

My Comment: The High-Tech Employment Galaxy?

LayoffsFyi:? The tech downturn in 2022 led to widespread layoffs that continued throughout last year, when more than 250,000 tech workers lost their jobs.

The pace of layoffs has slowed but companies are still shedding jobs in 2024, with more than 50,000 jobs cut at more than 200 organizations, according to?Layoffs.fyi .

Headcount growth at tech giants such as?Amazon ?and?Meta ?— which?dubbed ?2023 a “year of efficiency” —?has screeched to a halt or even decreased. Their stock prices, meanwhile,?have increased .

Smaller tech companies are prioritizing profits and some are fighting for survival amid a?tightened venture capital market . Startup headcount on Carta’s platform?shrank throughout 2023 , a notable reversal from the past several years.

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