The appetite for large investments in the technology sector is waning and this is causing companies to review wage costs in preparation for a potential recession. This is behind the massive layoff of workers at tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix.
Among those affected by big layoffs at tech companies this summer is Mary Hailu, a mother of an 8-year-old girl. Global News introduces us to her story.
“I’m a single mom. I’m the only income in my family, in my household,”
Hailu tells Global News, who is leaving a stable engineering job to join the tech sector in 2021.“I was feeling very anxious, very worried about the future. I think I probably cried for two weeks and I still cry now, when I think about it”,
she continued.
Hailu’s experience places her in a growing group of tech workers that have experienced a layoff this year as investor exuberance around the sector fades and companies re-examine payroll costs in preparation for a potential recession.
Despite massive layoffs among tech workers, Haley is proof that most people don’t give up and choose to work in the field again, but at a different company and in a different position.
“People in the tech industry are committed to the craft and they really are quite eager and quite motivated by what the industry has to offer. “Although many are getting laid off, they’re able to find new jobs quite quickly”,
tells Global News Abdullah Snobar, executive director of the DMZ tech hub in Toronto.
The startups like Clearco, Hootsuite and Wealthsimple – and global heavyweights – Meta, Twitter, Netflix, Microsoft, Oracle and Intel – have all made cuts in recent months.
Amazon.com Inc. began cuts this week that will reportedly slash 10,000 staff from its workforce, including several Canadians who announced their departures on LinkedIn.
Layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi has counted layoffs at 788 companies worldwide, resulting in at least 120,699 workers losing their jobs.
A recent report from the Information and Communications Technology Council, a not-for-profit organization offering labour policy advice, predicted employment in the Canadian digital economy would reach 2.26 million by 2025, triggering demand for an additional 250,000 jobs.
