Earlier this year, a deceleration in IT spending coupled with a decline in venture capital funding drove a rapid jump in technology sector layoff announcements. During 1Q23 there were 582 technology sector layoff announcements from 582 firms that impacted 167,398 workers – far above the 427 announcements affecting 60,082 employees during the pandemic driven 2Q20. However, the trend has significantly abated throughout 2023, and so far in 3Q23, there have been 202 announcements impacting just over 20,000 employees. While many are concerned that AI will replace jobs, those with AI engineering talent are currently in high demand. According to job site Indeed, job postings mentioning AI rose 35% over the last three years and over the last four years Zip Recruiter recorded a ten-fold increase. Despite news reports highlighting future career prospects for ‘prompt engineers,’ AI-related openings are centered on software development and semiconductor design expertise rather than text entry skills.
Source: Layoffs.fyi, September 2023.