From new age start-ups to seasoned IT giants, tech layoffs have been the flavor of the season all along 2022.
What worries the current set of employees across the industries is what could be the ambience for the new year 2023. Even when you shovel up historic data from as early as 2008, tech layoffs of around 65000 workers occurred in the tech niche. In 2022, this f8vure stood at 1,50,000 workers across 965 companies.
In 2008 to 2009, the world had been going through the Great Recession that saw initiation with collapse of Lehman Brothers. That seemed to justify the above figures as per reports from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
However, 2022 doesn’t seem to have enough justification for such massive lay offs despite poor economic conditions prevailing globally.
When names such as Microsoft, Meta, Twitter, Amazon and Salesforce are down to laying off more employees in the upcoming year, the matter perhaps, deserves some more insight.
A report from MarketWatch reveals that such layoffs are like some strategy a tech firm uses to maintain its viability for 2023 and even beyond.
A deeper look
Interesting data comes in from a tech layoff related database that is crowd sourced too. The database named layoffs.fyi, reveals that 1,495 tech comapnies went ahead and sacked 246,267 employees since 2020, the year of the pandemic.
Until November this year, above 73,000 workers in US tech sectors have seen laying off via mass job cuts. The biggies, Meta, Salesforce, Cisco, Netflix and even Roku are leaders of the pack.
India alone has seen 17,000 tech employees laid off in this sector.
HP and Amazon are see to fire and 6,000 and 20,000 employees in 2023.
After 2022 having been a roller coaster underlined by both growth and then, layoffs, 2023 seems to be a significant year for the IT industry.
The sector is set to see significant changes in the upcoming year thanks to latest technologies, strategies for hiring, and government-led reforms. While experts are predicting more slowdown, top leaders are also hinting at a more positive outlook.
The main crises that the sector is plagued with are declining margin, plummeting stock prices, layoffs, and expensive capital.
Digging up more data
As per reports from Gartner, the IT spending globally, is anticipated to reach around $4.6 trillion for 2023. This would mean a 5.1% hike over the previous year.
Vipin Vindal, the CEO of Quarks Technosoft says, “As 2022 comes to a close, the IT sector in the upcoming year will be dependent on a variety of factors, such as economic conditions, tech developments, and changes in business demand. While it is difficult to predict the future, things are likely to get better, especially pertaining to job security. In a bid to negate modern-day challenges, both employees and employers must stay flexible and be prepared to adapt to changing market scenarios.”
Summing up
Bhaskar Ganguly, the Director of Marketing and Sales qt Mass Software Solutions says that while the government will be unable to prevent such layoffs in entirety, “it can take steps to address workers’ concerns and protect their interests. The government can also ensure easy access to funds for capital requirements and loan return policies for small and medium-sized IT firms.”
