Why are so many jobs being shed in Big Tech sector worldwide? | Inside Story

Around 12,000 Google employees have been emailed, telling them their jobs are gone.
It follows cuts at Meta, Twitter and Microsoft.
More than 200,000 jobs have been lost in the sector in a year.
Some blame over-recruitment during the pandemic, wrong strategies or economic factors.
So why are so many jobs being lost in the sector worldwide?
Is Big Tech in big trouble?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests: Elaine Burke, Science and Technology Journalist, Host of "For Tech's Sake" podcast.

Jim Anderson, Chief Executive Officer, Beacon Software, Social Media Sector Lead at Glasswing Ventures.

Adrian Weckler, Irish Independent Technology Editor.


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[jigimoregolazk]

I work in civil engineering and a bunch of my coworkers worked for developers in 2008. They talk about the early part of the great recession like an apocalypse where prospects for employment went from plentiful and high paying to non-existent in like a month and didn't come back for years. It's a good reminder that nothing is as secure as it looks. 🙃

[quitegenius]

So much of the senior management's compensation is tied to stock that when it goes down they make a lot less money. And we know that no matter what happens, the senior management and leadership cannot make less money than they made last year. That's the gist of these cutbacks. I wouldn't be surprised to see senior management in these companies get record hikes and record increase in stock option this year. I can almost guarantee it actually.

[nathasyapramudita]

And yet unemployed rate is 3.5% and job opening are historical high in US. All the job that ready is low wages or minimum wages and stable one are getting cut every years. The gap incomes between the richest and the poorest would totally higher this years.

[MrLachrel]

The tech industry is pushing out employees in favor of lower paid contractors. Also, giant leaps in automation have led to automating entire departments.

[yvesmurray]

The metaverse is a joke. I feel badly for those losing their jobs however the fall of Mark Zuckerberg will bring a smile to my face

[Who-vtoh]

What are the incredible innovations that these companies are supposed to be achieving that are so important for humanity? Collecting our data so they can target ads to us? Yeah, no thanks. I think we can do without that "innovation."

[thegrimmer]

10:35 all of these companies have remained absurdly profitable despite all of their bellyaching. There should be laws against these hiring and firing cycles that destabilize families unnecessarily just because of quarterly reports to wealthy shareholders. It destroys long-term economic planning at the national and family level

[JSwift-jqwn]

Technology is designed to replace human labor, both physically and mentally.

[julioestol]

Something underlying downturn is people are rejecting being "influenced" in consumption decisions.
Advertisers are realizing advertising expenses in BigTech does not payback.

[CorncropTv]

Can't have a boom without a bust.

[greatestoneeva]

the boom didnt continue because nobody wants to live in VR we want reality itself to be better not to escape it. VR has the same driver has alcoholism -- escapism, people seeking an escape from the hellscape of our actual reality.

[JOSHII]

Let people go? Is that the inhuman term? Are they going for vacation?

[penguin]

Naming Tiktok and AI as evidence that some of the big companies will die out in 5yrs doesn't feel like a strong take. Many other panels have explained how tech isn't evolving or innovating. This panel(especially the Irish guy) sounds like a bunch of non-tech, tech investors. These companies aren't innovating because when it comes to apps, everything's run it's course. Like the women said, it's just been a bunch of copy cats. You can only upload/share words, pictures and videos in so many different ways before it gets redundant. Everything's been done so people will either call the 'new' thing a knock-off or we'll get new innovations once the hardware improves(like the video game industry from the 90s to today). But phones today are very fast, can do all the standard picture/video stuff and there's nothing else to do on them. It's up to the phone manufactures to innovate and that'll push the software/app devs. But I think we're in a technical lull/slow down phase and the investors don't like that. Maybe we could improve the actual call quality or something....

[twentyelectronics]

The average age of a Fortune 500 company is 21 years. Some of these company’s lifespans have simply run their course.

[chaywednesday]

Probably they will hire third party service provider for the tasks at a cheaper labor price.

[yuglesstube]

I think the advent of Chat GPT may be a factor. In tech, it will allow for greater employee productivity. The optics...sacking people as AI is introduced will be terrible. So getting ahead of this is nasty, but shrewd.

[jujuanogara]

It's all about greed. These gullible company are brown nosing stockholders at the expense of its employees like discarded old shoes

[chocochef]

When one door closes another one opens. Laid off tech employees won’t remain unemployed for a long time. Smaller to midsize tech firms and other industries are clamoring to hire them. Heck even the federal government are spending significant resources to attract experienced and skilled tech professionals.

[cndungu]

they helped develop systems that will take their own jobs
A case of a programmer making a gun-wielding robot for the police only for it to kill his entire family during a misidentified raid.

[tonyj]

Wtf" 200.000 jobs lost this is scary news for America 🇺🇸