While it’s hard to imagine things getting much worse than they are now, this is already familiar territory for those in the tech industry. As a new report from CNBC confirms, the tech industry is now at a point where the job losses and now has more losses than the dot-com crash of 2001. A shocking figure supports these claims- 50,000 tech positions have been eliminated at over 200 companies so far in 2024 per data from industry tracker Layoffs.fyi.
This is a significant blow to the industry, following the 260k positions eliminated in 2023 across nearly 1,200 companies. Meanwhile, AI engineers are largely exempt from this trend, with their salaries jumping by an average of 12% in just the final quarter of 2023 and now having an average earning of $190k across the country.
No matter the company size, none have been exempted from the hatchet men; even major players like Google, Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, and Microsoft are all cutting their number of employees dramatically. As stockholders applaud the moves as AI is making many jobs unnecessary, there is a major problem coming because of these cuts.
Now forced to take lower-level and lower-paying positions, many of these workers are now struggling to keep their heads above water. Thanks to Bidenflation the pay cuts are hitting harder than they usually might have as nearly everyone is starting to struggle. For those currently looking, they are suddenly finding themselves competing with far more people than they used to.
Krysten Powers was one of those workers who suddenly found herself without work after being laid off from Flyr in January. After spending two years with the travel tech start-up, Powers saw the new job market as more difficult than normal work in many respects. “You’re putting out resumes and getting almost immediate rejections. It does take a toll on your confidence, and you get this sort of imposter syndrome.”
