A lack of demand is not fluid across industries. While the recent news of large tech companies making cuts hangs in the air, many industries including insurance, aerospace, banking, green, retail, government, etc. are ramping up their hiring and even struggling to find talent to fill their positions. A few popular companies in the news headlines do not represent the majority.
Yes, There Have Been Layoffs in Tech
Layoffs have been in the headlines each week for various major tech companies. It’s hard to ignore the feelings that come along with hearing that the industry is downsizing its employees and companies are streamlining operations. It’s so important to dive deeper into the facts though.
The truth is that layoffs have not been equally distributed. There is not an equal portion of employees laid off from each department. A large portion of recruiters have been laid off in this economy due to the lack of growth and need for talent acquisition. Which leads to another topic of recruiters switching into tech roles, addressed in a recent blog. Many companies have admitted to overhiring and this is the unfortunate effect of that during an economic downturn. They have to trim the corners and cut costs to remain profitable. This doesn’t mean that it’s not a good time to switch into tech. It means that you need to be strategic about choosing a career within tech that is and will remain in high demand for years to come. Certain careers cannot be replaced or reduced in times of layoffs.
On the other hand, now is the most crucial time to get into an industry that is continuing to grow overnight with advancements like self-driving cars, ChatGPT and other Large Language Models, quantum computing, blockchain, etc. With new technology in the works at companies from startups to large corporations, there is no better time to get involved. Another issue is that companies are not fully disclosing which departments the layoffs are sourcing from. While it may be a “tech” company, the roles eliminated might simply be administrative, recruitment, senior positions, and other departments. This is why it is so important to not get hung up on the numbers or discouraged by the daunting headlines in the media.
Doing your research and shifting your focus on understanding the numbers and where the layoffs occurred will better help you understand that there are thousands of open technical roles.
But Software Engineers and Tech Talent are Still in High Demand
The digital revolution began around 1969 and has only recently begun to evolve into the 4th industrial revolution, with technology becoming increasingly sophisticated and commonplace in our everyday lives.
Despite what you’re reading and hearing, the numbers don’t lie. According to LinkedIn and Indeed, there are still hundreds of thousands of open jobs for a variety of titles and industries. The following numbers are the rough number of openings today:
- Cloud Engineers - 138,000 open jobs on Linkedin (133,000 on Indeed)
- Software Engineers - 317,000 open jobs on LinkedIn (129,000 on Indeed)
- Full Stack - 278,000 jobs (11,000 on Indeed)
- Data Science - 167,000 jobs (22,000 on Indeed)
- Machine Learning - 138,000 jobs (34,000 on Indeed)
These figures show that there is still a demand for technical talent across a wide range of departments and companies regardless of what news headlines might be telling you. These also reflect a wide range of job titles, types of positions and a multitude of industries. They range from internships and apprenticeships to contract and consulting positions. There is no shortage of ways to get involved in tech roles, even if not in the tech industry. According to a February 2023 CompTIA report, tech industry and tech occupation employment are still on the rise regardless of specific job posting changes per metro. It also indicates that skills are changing and AI is one of the prevalent emerging technologies required by employers.
Tech is Everywhere, and Jobs are Still Strong at "Non-High-Tech" Companies
As noted by The Newstack, “It’s just that, in 2023, the greatest opportunities may not lie exclusively in the FAANG companies anymore, but in more traditional industries that are upgrading their legacy stacks and embracing cloud native.” Shifting your mindset away from working in just the high-tech companies opens doors to new opportunities you may never have considered before. It allows you to see the perspective of thousands of job openings and enables you to get employed.
Niche businesses are available everywhere and are in need of quality engineers to keep their operations running. Technical jobs are open at tons of companies including many of the following employers that are still hiring tech roles in 2023:
- Deloitte: 18,615 jobs
- Capital One: 2,047 jobs
- Chase: 1,410 jobs
- Accenture: 1,602 jobs
- General Dynamics Information Technology: 1,834 jobs
- Lockheed Martin: 1,979 jobs
- KPMG: 1,882 jobs
- Cognizant: 421 jobs
- Northrop Grumman: 2,765 jobs
- Raytheon: 984 jobs
- Citi: 1,060 jobs
- Cox Communications: 225 jobs
- Elevance Health: 282 jobs
Some of the many industries still hiring are banking, higher education, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, military and defense contractors, Green/environmental jobs with government funding, and many more. There are technical roles within every industry and opportunities for technical positions to be created in the future in even more industries. Just because Amazon, Meta, and Linked are not hiring, doesn’t mean that ‘tech jobs aren’t available’. They represent a small percentage of total jobs out there in technical roles, even though they pull in a lot of media attention due their company popularity. As indicated by job boards everywhere, there are plenty of technical roles still available for qualified applicants with the skills and technical portfolio.
Future Proofing Yourself in an Unstable and Uncertain Economy
The one thing you can always do is invest in yourself. If you’ve considering a career transition or thinking of upskilling through some form of technical training, it couldn’t be a better time. Adding skills to your portfolio and expanding your knowledge into new realms sets you apart from others when applying for jobs and can lead you down a new road.
For those pondering a career transition, tech is a desirable investment in skills because the future is technical. Advancements in technology are continuous. Using your spare time to further your skills and earn a certification, can provide you with career advancement opportunities even within your company. Part-time programs offer increased flexibility to be completed alongside a full-time job without making a sacrifice. If you’re interested in switching careers, read more in our recent blog: https://blog.qwasar.io/blog/switching-careers-from-tech-recruiting-to-software-engineering
Technology is Changing, New Tech Stacks, New Languages, New Talent
One thing that will remain constant in the midst of a changing world and economy is the demand and need for skilled workers in the newest and latest technologies. As new tech stacks are developed and brought to the surface and new languages are implemented at companies worldwide, the demand for the best talent in those areas will stay constant. What’s essential to know and be skilled in today might not be the language for 6 months from now. Staying current and being skilled in a variety of languages is a crucial way to future-proof yourself for the 21st century. You cannot stay stagnant in today's world. You have to be constantly learning, growing, developing because technology demands it. A lifelong learner is the one who will succeed.
In a recent New York Times article, “Despite a year of aggressive interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve aimed at taming inflation, and signs that the red-hot labor market is cooling off, most companies have not taken the step of cutting jobs. Outside of some high-profile companies mostly in the tech sector, such as Google’s parent Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft, layoffs in the economy as a whole remain remarkably, even historically, rare.” Included in this article was data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that, “There were fewer layoffs in December than in any month during the two decades before the pandemic, government data show.”
