Life after tech: For displaced workers, these 5 career paths are on the rise

What lies ahead for tech workers whose jobs have vanished? That’s an increasingly urgent question, given that 2023 so far has seen 191,000 job cuts – more than the pace of layoffs for all of last year.

If you’re rooting for these workers to rebound – and who isn’t? – a new analysis by LinkedIn’s Economic Graph team has some encouraging news. This research tracks many thousands of displaced workers from tech and media companies over the first four months of 2023, as they set out to find new jobs.

The key insight: Five fresh career paths stand out, and only one of them involves finding another job in tech. Overall, 37.3% of displaced workers in tech, media and information are landing anew in the same sector, down from a rate of more than 40% a few years ago. Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of displaced tech workers are venturing into a wide cross-section of new industries.?

The most common career switch, as seen in the chart below, involves pivoting into the professional services sector, which is dominated by consulting and accounting firms. That’s where 19.6% of former tech workers find their next career chapter.

Think of professional services firms as huge importers of tech expertise, which drives a lot of their consulting business. Category leaders such as Accenture and EY now rank software engineering or information technology among their three most common job functions, as seen in the latest edition of LinkedIn’s Top Companies list for the U.S.?

In a recent broadcast interview, Accenture chief executive Julie Sweet shared that? “all of our 700,000 (world-wide) employees have to pass 11 assessments on technology, because that’s so important to their jobs.”

This desire to build IT and software capabilities is running strong in financial services, too, where 8.3% of displaced tech sector workers are landing. Talent flows go in both directions, as this recent survey by Greg Larkin points out, but banks such as JPMorgan are working hard to become talent magnets. In his latest letter to investors, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon highlighted artificial intelligence as “an extraordinary and groundbreaking technology” that “will be critical to our company’s success.”?

Not only are major banks snapping up displaced tech workers – they also are actively wooing established senior talent in the data and digital economy. Demetrey Zilberg, the former chief technology officer at FactSet, jumped to a similar role at Wells Fargo last summer, after exploring options at all four of the largest U.S. banks.

Zilber says he had been braced for a slower tempo in the regulated banking sector. But he’s found that while Wells Fargo is fastidious about regulatory compliance, it’s still possible to get a lot done briskly in such a setting. He likens himself to a race car driver benefiting from an experienced seatmate who “makes sure I don’t hit the barrier.”

Meanwhile, 8% of displaced tech and media workers are finding new careers in manufacturing, where opportunities go far beyond assembly-line labor. Common new roles include software engineering, sales, project management and marketing.?

Within manufacturing, LinkedIn data shows that hiring of former tech workers is especially active among carmakers working hard on autonomous driving (such as Cruise and Tesla) as well as at medical-equipment makers and aerospace companies.?

Where else are people landing? Fields such as hospitals and health care (3.7%), administrative and support services (3.2%) and entertainment providers (3.1%) make the top-10 list, along with retail, education and consumer services, all of which are at 2.5% or higher.

The five biggest hiring locations for displaced workers all are well-known job hubs with a tech flavor. Topping the list is metro New York City, followed by the San Francisco bay area, and then metro Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston.?

But a separate ranking of the fastest growing metros, in terms of hiring displaced tech workers, has more surprises. Washington D.C.-Baltimore tops that list, followed by Chicago, Austin, Salt Lake City, Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Phoenix.

Among displaced workers who do decide to stay in the tech sector, many end up working for smaller companies – a choice that can include launching their own startups.?

Typical among these entrepreneurs is software engineer Ryan McPartlan, who did a stint at Google before deciding that “it was not the best next step on my path.” He’s now cofounder and chief technology officer at Autonico, which is developing time-saving ways of filling out common forms.

Methodology:

Displaced tech workers are defined as members within the industry who successfully started a new role between January and April 2023 and whose LinkedIn profiles had Open-to-Work (OTW) turned on between their old position start date and their new position start date. This group includes non-technical workers at tech companies.

LinkedIn data scientists Pingyu He and Danielle Kavanagh-Smith contributed to this report.