Layoffs Escalate Beyond Tech Firms, But There’s a Silver Lining | Ep. 8
massive layoffs are now extending Beyond technology companies to other Enterprises but there is a silver lining for workers with technology skills next up on today in Tech [Music] welcome back to the show I'm Keith Shaw technology companies continue to shed employees in the wake of a pandemic hiring boom over the last few years but in recent weeks we've seen companies such as Microsoft Google and Salesforce all announcing layoffs earlier this week Spotify announced it was going to cut about six percent of its Workforce so in the tech company space people are still letting go but now we're also seeing what I call the other shoe about to drop or The Dominoes starting the topple or the snowball rolling down the hill I've got about 20 different cliches here but we're now seeing them on the Enterprise side of the Enterprise side as well so non-traditional like they're not really tech companies so companies like Capital One 3M Newell Brands they make Sharpies they've all announced a bunch of layoffs in recent weeks on the media side for example layoffs are hitting companies like the Washington Post host Fox Media and AD week at least 25 companies in the advertising industry because it's all these marketers that are preparing for a softening economy now well it's also difficult to determine how many of these positions at these companies are technology-based roles there are also some signs that there is a silver lining for workers who do have Tech skills so joining me to discuss some of the news and Trends around these layoffs is Lucas Marion he's the senior writer at Computer World covers the labor market covers tech jobs things like that he's been on the show before welcome back Lucas good to be here uh now you have a store a new story up on uh computerworld uh.com that shows that tech jobs are dominating the top 25 uh best jobs in the U.S according to indeed.com um can you kind of elaborate on on what you found and uh you know sort of the Silver Lining that we're seeing yeah it's it's it's more even the silver lining the fact of the matter is that tech jobs are the most in demand out there last year two of the top 10 jobs and best jobs that is according to indeed were uh tech jobs this year it's eight eight of the top 10 jobs for tech jobs nearly half 44 percent our of the top 25 jobs our technology positions right and this is roles like the technology so it's not like a specific job listing right no that well yeah they also they are are also specific about the types of jobs as well so for example the number one job on the list is um uh full stack developer number two data engineer and number three Cloud engineer so the top three jobs are technology positions and they're paying well into the six figures now is this something that that they've called from recent data or or is it older data and maybe they haven't updated it yet or is it I mean how confident are you in this um you know news from indeed yeah this is from December okay uh that's when they called it from last year and uh and they and they analyze it and then they of course project what's happening in 2023 and uh it's it's really a market difference so in last year's uh 25 best jobs only 25 of them I mean that's still a lot but one in four were Tech positions and like I said this year it's nearly double it's 44 so tech jobs are highly in demand and I think we've talked about this before yeah it just got the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday and uh people are still number one they're still quitting jobs so over 4 million people every month are still quitting their jobs but the unemployment rate in the technology Market is only 1.8 percent
compared to the general unemployment rate in the United States or three point five percent right right and like what does that indicate to you does it is it just that that we've talked about this before where companies during the pandemic they started to over hire because they needed you know to either support remote and hybrid work or they needed you know they were getting if they were in the retail space and e-commerce space you know all these people were starting to buy things online and they needed to support you know that infrastructure um so a lot of them have admitted that they they over hired people right they did and a lot of times they were over hiring in areas that weren't necessarily technology but they couldn't even get the people to fill technology roles that was one big part of it I mean yeah so what they did was they hired uh they tended to hire more experienced workers when they could get them and they were kind of middle Management workers that were at high pay but not always in fields that they necessarily needed and so we saw recently um what was it uh Amazon laid off 18 000 employees earlier this month and the majority of them were from Human Resources yeah so they wouldn't even technology workers um alphabet is laying off six I think six percent of its Workforce 12 000 jobs and it's it's ironic because you have an alphabet investor who's urging the company you think you wrote him a letter basically saying look you need to lay off more you need to take this from just under 170 000 employees down to 150 000 employees uh even though they're still profitable right still right money so it's ironic I don't want to keep using that word but I think they're they were all concerned that a recession was going to hit and today we found out that the GDP was 2.9 percent so the the economy is growing we had a short recession back in the summer but since that time the economy has continued to grow there's really no science that a recession is on the horizon even though people are still ringing their hand are still ringing their hands about that a lot of this is in reaction to uh or perceived uh slowing of the economy but that's not really happening we're doing very well in the economy even though the FED continues to boost interest rates in order to slow uh inflation yeah I I've seen a couple of articles that have called this the great reshuffling rather than you know because because of course you know why invent a new term just take an old term and just call it something else so it's more about companies that are just sort of kind of you know moving things around and reshuffling and you know that's that's more than just sort of like we're laying off because of reason X Y or Z and do you think that this Enterprise uh is it spilling over into the Enterprise because they over hired to or do you think that maybe some of these Enterprises like Capital One 3M and maybe they're bracing themselves for a possible recession and and so they're like well we're seeing all these other companies doing it so and we have a little bit of softness that we need to sort of address like in your opinion does do these Trends tend to snowball for example absolutely yeah that's that's part of what's happening right now you're seeing other companies do it especially public companies and investors are saying whoa whoa wait a second if they're cutting we should be cutting two right yeah yeah so there's definitely a follow-up leader kind of trend out there I don't think it's going to last I think they're going to realize we need these guys we need these employees and they're being snapped up so companies that don't have the the talent are snapping them right up there's virtually no unemployment in technology right now I'm just going to go out and say that yeah the 1.8 it's virtually non-existent yeah and and so let's say that there were some tech employees that got let go and and you know if you were an engineer or a programmer or something at Google uh or Amazon or some of these big you know Facebook and you have this resume now um it's probably another Silver Lining is that there are lots of other companies in there like either their Tech departments that are you know struggling to find people um you know I I recall a story I met some people at um John Deere a few years ago or were talking to some of their people and vague this was during the tech boom when everybody was hiring and this was just like everyone's hiring everyone's hiring everyone everyone's hiring and then they're like we have to compete with people that that we're looking for people that are getting hired at Google and they go out to Silicon Valley and we have to say that no no stay in Iowa where John Deere is located or like and so they had to come up with ways to try to entice people to you know live in and there's nothing wrong with Iowa by the way I've I've been there it's a nice it's a nice state but if you're a you know someone out of college and you have to like well I could work for Google where they've got all of these perks and benefits and ping pong tables and you know free lunches and all this other stuff um yeah that's going away by the way we're going to talk about that later um versus oh I get to stay in Iowa in the middle of winter when there's like you know two feet of snow on the ground I mean but you know so if now that you've been laid off there if you're willing to sort of find another company that doesn't necessarily have to be attacked but use your skills there's there's jobs out there right absolutely yeah and no question um the Technology field right now is fascinating to me because not only um are there a lot of jobs out there but there's a lot of opportunity to change your career and so if you know on no longer want to be a program you want to become a data analyst vast opportunities do that a project manager big opportunities for doing that and what's so great about it is companies want to train you they they don't care if you have the previous training they'll bring you in an apprenticeships and internships they'll have you come in and they'll teach you with online courses they'll have a mentor I'll follow you through I've written stories about that where companies don't necessarily in fact even require a college degree these days they want people who just they love technology and they love to learn they have a passion for it and they've got good character right they want that more than the sheepskin right so and you're seeing that I mean I think 50 on LinkedIn and and other online job sites are seeing college degree requirements go away so uh yeah companies what they really want they want somebody who's passionate about what they're doing uh and who loves to learn right and now there's um we also want to say that if you were if you have been laid off that obviously there is a tough road I'm not a tough road but there's you know I we I don't want to sort of dismiss the fact that there might be some people out there that are out of work because you know I've been unemployed a few times definitely have been laid off from companies before it's not the best thing in the world to go through um so I I'm trying not to dismiss that by by saying oh you know you'll get a job in in a week and hahaha this is so easy you know we we understand that there is some difficulties and and there are growing trends that it it's not going to be as easy as it was maybe you know six months ago or nine months ago for example I've seen some stories about the that the hiring process is now taking longer than before you still have the issues of of companies using robotic um AI processing to go through a resume looking for keywords so you it's that first time you submit you might might not even get to a human until the second or third round you know things like that so what advice would you have for for people that that you know has been doing the right thing but they suddenly find themselves layoffs and they have some tech skills or maybe they don't have Tech skills like what would you you tell them if they they approached you yeah I think it's first of all what companies are doing right now is after that kind of hiring spree over the past two years they're being more judicious about how they're hiring people they're looking to make the process higher quality they want higher quality employees and they don't want just higher uh willy-nilly like they had been doing so they are taking more time in order to find better employees I would suggest getting in touch with um possibly a uh a job um counselor Human Resources Services Company a company that can tell you what sorts of Technology uh positions companies are are hiring in and what kind of skills they're looking for I've written articles about numerous articles about this and I think mainly like I said what companies looking for are somebody who has who shows a passion for what they do it's not necessarily what you have in terms of what boxes have you checked out with you checked off with your education right but what is your life I know this sounds like a guru thing but it's what is your life it's true what's your life experience in this what projects have you worked with yeah what do you bring to the table in terms of as a person [Music] um you know I love what I do that I want to be with your company because you're right in my in my Lane this is exactly what I do want to do for my career this is why I want to do it these are some of my successes from the past so instead just going in and listing a bunch of um qualifications that you may have talk about yourself more talk about what you really love to do why you want to join that company right what you offer them yeah I've got I've got two pieces of advice too that I that from Recently is that you know we've been talking a lot about chat GPT on this show uh and we and we actually saw another article that was like Hey you know use chat GPT to help you write your uh cover letter or you know I I wouldn't I don't know if it would help you write your resume but uh when I was writing a lot of cover letters you you know the advice is to make sure that you match the keywords from the job description um every time I had a you know a new job that I was applying for I had to look at the job description find the biggest keywords make sure that my cover letter and resume had those keywords in it it's a lot of work but that can get you past that first robotic and it's like well if I could have a robot tell me how to beat the robots I mean that's even that's even cooler my second piece of advice was just to network network and network I you know use your friends you use your co-workers you know if you know again it's another reason that's why you should always be nice to your co-workers right Chris yeah you know be nice to all of your co-workers Lucas you're the best uh because you never know when you're going to need them so that's a valuable life skills for for anybody in in the job market so because it's more likely that you'll probably get a a new job based on recommendations from your friends and co-workers um in terms of then so you know I'm getting a good feeling from you Lucas about that like you know that all is not bad all is not Doom and Gloom is is this just the media's fault because we just follow the the bad news all the time and we start seeing Trends and we start seeing these things and you know if you're reading this or watching this video and you're going oh my God you know I'm going to get fired next week I'm going to get laid off um and we're trying to tell you like all right ignore that like what what can we do better as as media people well I think there's a lot of knee-jerk reaction today it's all about who gets the news out first instead of really analyzing what's going on so those tech companies having layoffs and and you know I've seen this over and over and they're like well you know technology positions that's an outlier you know don't worry about it other careers in health care and and uh and marketing and sales they're doing well and they're not really exploring what's happening in these companies they're not necessarily laying off Tech workers yeah in some cases they are but that's because again they've over hired them and there's still plenty of jobs out there right right so unfortunately in the in this uh mature internet era they're trying to beat other people to the punch and get the news out fast rather than taking time to analyze it and actually produce something that has some insight into what's going on out there there's a lot of hand-wringing yeah there's a lot yeah there's a lot of hand ringing there's a lot of uh Chicken Little the sky is falling oh my gosh we're gonna you know the meteor is gonna hit next week blah blah blah blah blah meteor like the asteroid that's gonna hit the planet and you know there's a lot of that you know Doom and Gloom that we see out there so it's actually I I was very encouraged when we reached out to you and you're like oh I've got some good news I'm like oh excellent excellent good news is great um do you think that this trend is gonna continue for a while are we gonna you know so is this are we in the you know beginning middle or end stages have you been able to sort of get a sense of where you think companies are going on this you know from what from talking to research organizations they do believe this is going to continue at least for the first half of 2023 um and they're not sure what's going to happen after that I I wish I could tell you myself I don't know we're going to have to continue to watch this but there is a great reshuffling I like that word better than you know resignation or anything else um I I think there is a reshuffling going on and that's all it is it's some companies are um are deciding they don't need this many workers but other companies definitely still need them here's the other thing to remember uh versus last year where a lot of uh and it's still important flexibility is still high on the list of why workers stay with the company they want flexible hours they want their flexibility in workplace whether they can do hybrid or remote but they also want stability right and so they're looking they're more apt to uh reply to a job Hunter a Headhunter or a job listing or actively look for a job if their company's doing a lot of layoffs right now and so a lot of these layoffs that for example like I said uh alphabet uh did and they're being urged to do more they may get their wish because people may just walk out the door and find a job somewhere else they want a company that's stable and when they hear the companies done layoffs that doesn't say stability yeah and so they start looking themselves and the great great resignation is still going on that BLS date is telling us more than 4 million a month if you're a company looking to lay off people you better think long and hard about that because they may not come back right in fact some of the people that you've and the people that are left over you know they not only do they end up with survivors guilt and things like that but then they might start thinking hey it's yeah do you have a sense of do you of what stats or trends that you might see where you would hit a hit a panic button or you know where you turn into the Chicken Little of the world or um are you always just trying to remain as positive as possible like is is there a point where you look at something and go uh-oh you know what if you mean you're talking about within a company yeah when you're watching this Trends and that because you're tied into a lot of data from the government and you know all these other companies that produce stats about it jobs right yeah I think companies that are hyper sensitive to investors are a bad thing yeah uh because investors are like you know the weather they change day in and day out if you watch the market it's insane when I covered Financial Services much more closely I always wound up scratching my head like literally you and I know a butterfly could flap its wings in the Middle East and you know the markets will drop a thousand points right right there's no Rhyme or Reason to it sometimes and so listening to them too much not having a vision if I'm in a company and I see no vision going forward like like what is the mission statement here where are we headed yeah is there are we growing uh and more importantly are we being Innovative so we're not just uh you know growing the same old products but what what new are we looking to do right that's important all right you want to see a vision within a company all right hey great stuff Lucas thanks again for for joining us on the show all right happy beer all right and that's all the time we have for today's episode don't forget to like the video subscribe to the channel and add any comments that you have below join us every week for new episodes of today in Tech have a great day and we'll see you next time [Music]
2023-02-04 00:59
