Tech Layoffs: You are Not Safe

Tech layoffs are common these days. In fact experts are saying the chance of worsening is more likely to happen this year. The viral video posted on January 2024 by Brittany Pietsch, an account executive working for US tech company Cloudflare got millions of views where we saw how employers are fabricating false performance evaluation claims and eventually fire her.

This made news in public. Even media giants covered the story in wide scale. In a number of interviews, Brittany gave her first hand account and discussed other things as well. In addition she shared her feelings.

In 2023 QUALCOMM laid off 1200 employees. Google, Amazon and Snap continued to downsize their company last year. It seems this trend is continuing by Google this year too as people working in YouTube, Ad Sales, Hardware and Engineering are being affected equally. Amazon is also eliminating hundred of roles across MGM studio, Twitch and Prime Video and claiming they are doing this to prioritize long term investments.

Professionals who ones boasted to their friends and families that they work at Google or Amazon, they landed on their dream job can be get laid off in a matter of minutes. According to to University of Washington researchers, the lay off trend in 2024 will be continued since investors priority between growth and investment has changed.

The Covid-19 Effect

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns, which was death blow to economics, tech companies remained productive and flourished over the next two years. In USA interest rates was decreased to almost zero in order to support businesses, this helped boost tech company stocks. This leads to more hiring.

Amazon was the top recruiter, 1.6 million professionals were hired by them back in 2021. Actually big tech were focusing on growth at that time because capital was cheap and affordable, loan were easy to acquire because of low interest rate. But as time passes by, headcount could not bring more profitability, interest rate grew and getting capital loan became hard. That is when companies started to lay off. CEOs like Elon Musk was criticized publicly by many but other company CEOs were actually applauding him saying it "Amazing Move".

AI Hype

As the field of artificial intelligence was growing faster, use of it in real life problems became prevalent in 2023. Big tech CEOs showed keen interest in AI research. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced investing in Artificial General Intelligence and open-sourcing it. Even job posting with the term generative AI has increased 6000% as mentioned by Indeed CEO on an interview. While this is a good news for the AI tech savvy, it will cost others their livlihood. Jobs like customer handling, marketing decision, data analysis will be automated. Its eminent and inevitable.

End of Tech Job Myth?

Once it was glorious for someone to work in Google or Amazon. But now, things have changed completely. According to Nasdaq Composite Index, the stock value increases 43% more than the previous year for the tech companies. Meta was the biggest gainer with 194% increase. It means CEOs are becoming 43% more reach whereas laying off brings more profitability. It seems lay off is becoming the new normal.

Non-Tech Jobs

UPS, the courier service laid off 12,000 in January 2024. Media, another volatile sector cut at least 20,000 jobs. 2024 is not different, NBC, Paramount, LA Times already announced job cuts. But the labor market still seems strong. It is too early to say anything negative. But the bad news is the stock price is high, unemployment is low. If this continues, companies have to cut back spending and then the real problem will start.