Laid-off techies face ‘sense of impending doom’ with job cuts at highest since dot-com crash

Allison
Croisant,
a
data
scientist
with
about
a
decade
of
experience
in
technology,
was
laid
off
by


PayPal
earlier
this
year,
joining
the
masses
of
unemployed
across
her
industry.
Croisant
has
one
word
to
describe
the
process
of
looking
for
a
job
right
now:
“Insane.”

“Everybody
else
is
also
getting
laid
off,”
said
Croisant,
who
lives
in
Omaha,
Nebraska,
where
she
worked
remotely
for
PayPal.

Her
sentiment
is
reflected
in
the
numbers.
Since
the
start
of
the
year,
more
than
50,000
workers
have
been
laid
off
from
over
200
tech
companies,
according
to
tracking
website

Layoffs.fyi.
It’s
a
continuation
of
the
predominant
theme
of
2023,
when
more
than
260,000
workers
across
nearly
1,200
tech
companies
lost
their
jobs.

Alphabet,


Amazon,


Meta
and


Microsoft
have
all
taken
part
in
the
downsizing
this
year,
along
with


eBay,


Unity
Software,


SAP
and


Cisco.
Wall
Street
has
largely
cheered
on
the
cost-cutting,
sending
many
tech
stocks
to
record
highs
on
optimism
that
spending
discipline
coupled
with
efficiency
gains
from
artificial
intelligence
will
lead
to
rising
profits.
PayPal

announced
in
January
that
it
was
eliminating
9%
of
its
workforce,
or
about
2,500
jobs.

For
the
tens
of
thousands
of
people
in
Croisant’s
position,
the
path
toward
reemployment
is
daunting.
All
told,
2023
was
the
second-biggest
year
of
cuts
on
record
in
the
technology
sector,
behind
only
the
dot-com
crash
in
2001,
according
to

outplacement
firm
Challenger,
Gray
&
Christmas.
Not
since
the
spectacular
flameouts
of
Pets.com,
eToys
and
Webvan
have
so
many
tech
workers
lost
their
jobs
in
such
a
short
period
of
time.

Last
month’s
job
cut
count
was
the

highest
of
any
February
since
2009,
when
the
financial
crisis
forced
companies
into
cash
preservation
mode.

CNBC
spoke
to
a
dozen
people
who
have
been
laid
off
from
tech
jobs
in
the
past
year
or
so
about
their
experiences
navigating
the
labor
market.
Some
spoke
on
the
condition
that
CNBC
not
use
their
names
or
write
about
the
details
of
their
situation.
Taken
together,
they
paint
a
picture
of
an
increasingly
competitive
market
with
job
listings
that
include
exacting
requirements
for
qualification
and
come
with
lower
pay
than
their
prior
gigs.

It’s
a
particularly
confounding
situation
for
software
developers
and
data
scientists,
who
just
a
couple
of
years
ago
had
some
of
the
most
marketable
and
highly
valued
skills
on
the
planet,
and
are
now
considering
whether
they
need
to
exit
the
industry
to
find
employment.

“The
market
isn’t
what
it
once
was,”
Roger
Lee,
creator
of
Layoffs.fyi,
said
in
an
email.
“To
secure
a
new
position,
many
salespeople
and
recruiters
are
leaving
tech
entirely.
Even
engineers
are
compromising
—
accepting
roles
with
less
stability,
a
tougher
work
environment,
or
lower
pay
and
benefits.”

Lee
said
tech
salaries
have
“largely
stagnated”
in
the
last
two
years,
citing
data
from

Comprehensive.io,
a
compensation
tracker
he
recently
helped
launch.

Croisant’s
job
search
involved
applying
for
some
positions
that
had
racked
up
hundreds
of
applicants.
She
could
see
that
data
using
LinkedIn’s
Talent
Insights
platform,
which
shows
how
many
people
are
vying
for
an
open
role.

Additionally,
some
listings
required
applicants
to
have
advanced
degrees
or
professional
experience
in
machine
learning
and
artificial
intelligence,
a
new
development
in
Croisant’s
experience
on
the
job
market.

During
five
weeks
of
job
hunting,
Croisant
said
she
applied
to
48
openings
and
landed
two
interviews.
She
finally
opted
to
accept
a
lower-level
data
analyst
role
and
a
roughly
$3,000
reduction
in
her
base
pay
to
take
a
contract
role
starting
next
month
at
a
financial
technology
company.

“This
was
an
absolutely
terrifying
experience
for
me,
and
I’m
not
sure
if
I’ll
ever
truly
feel
secure
in
a
job
again,”
Croisant
said.
“But
I’m
still
one
of
the
lucky
ones
in
the
end.
I
have
friends
who’ve
been
looking
for
months
and
still
haven’t
found
anything.”

‘It’s
humbling’

Krysten
Powers
was
laid
off
in
January
from
travel
tech
startup
Flyr
after
two
years
in
marketing
at
the
company.
She
said
navigating
the
current
labor
market
is
like
a
full-time
job,
“sometimes
even
harder.”

“You’re
putting
out
resumes
and
getting
almost
immediate
rejections,”
said
Powers,
who’s
worked
in
marketing
for
a
decade.
“It
does
take
a
toll
on
your
confidence
and
you
get
this
sort
of
imposter
syndrome.”

Powers
lives
with
her
husband
and
two
kids
in
the
small
town
of
Natchez,
Mississippi.
A
month
before
she
lost
her
job,
her
family
bought
a
new
house. Powers
said
moving
isn’t
an
option,
and
she’s
only
considering
remote
roles
in
marketing.
However,
she
is
willing
to
accept
a
pay
cut.

“It’s
humbling
for
sure,”
she
said.

The
same
dynamics
are
playing
out
across
the
industry,
even
for
former
employees
of


Google,
which
was
long
considered
the
home
of
Silicon
Valley’s
elite
talent.

Christopher
Fong,
who
worked
at
Google
from
2006
to
2015,
is
the
founder
of
a
group
called
Xoogler.co,
which
seeks
to
provide
help
for
people
laid
off
from
the
internet
company.
The
9-year-old
organization,
consisting
of
thousands
of
Google
alumni
and
current
staffers,
offers
peer
support
and
hundreds
of
in-person
events.

In
January,
Google

eliminated
several
hundred
positions
across
its
hardware,
central
engineering
and
Google
Assistant
teams.
A
year
earlier,
the
company
cut

12,000
jobs,
or
roughly
6%
of
its
full-time
workforce. 

Fong
said
the
“biggest
challenge”
today
for
many
ex-Google
employees
is
finding
a
job
that
maintains
their
previous
level
of
pay.

Michael
Kascsak,
who
was
laid
off
by
Google
in
March
of
last
year,
took
a
different
approach
to
his
job
search.

Kascsak
said
he
welcomed
a
pay
cut
to
start
as
head
of
talent
acquisition
for
veterinary
business
CityVet
in
January
after
applying
for
hundreds
of
jobs.
He
acknowledged
that
his
previous
employer
had
set
exceptionally
high
compensation
expectations. 

“I
went
into
this
knowing
I
had
been
fortunate
to
work
at
a
company
that
paid
at
the
top
percentile
and
I’m
a
realist.
I
prepared
myself
to
be
flexible,”
said
Kascsak,
who
lives
in
Austin,
Texas,
and
previously
worked
in
talent
sourcing
for
Google.
“I’m
fine
with
the
pay
now
because
I’m
in
the
environment
I
want
to
be
in
with
great
people.”

Tech
is
a
notable
outlier
in
a
labor
market
that’s
been
largely
steady
over
the
past
two
years.
Nationwide,
the

unemployment
rate
ticked
up
to
3.9%
in
February
from
3.7%
each
of
the
prior
three
months.
It’s
been
mostly
in
that
range
since
early
2022.
The
U.S.
economy
added
275,000
jobs
in
February,
topping
200,000
for
a
third
straight
month.

Sentiment
indexes
are
mixed.
Job
review
website
Glassdoor’s
Employee
Confidence
Index,
which
gauges
how
employees
feel
about
their
employer’s
six-month
business
outlook,

sank
to
its
lowest
level
in
February
since
its
sentiment
data
first
began
in
2016.
Among
tech
workers,
discussions
about
layoffs
on
Glassdoor
have
more
than
quadrupled
in
the
past
two
years,
and
were
up
12%
last
month
compared
with
a
year
earlier.

However,
ZipRecruiter’s
Job
Seeker
Confidence
Index
has
been
rising
since
mid-2023,
and
increased
to
its
highest
level
in
the

fourth
quarter
since
the
second
quarter
of
2022.

Even
within
tech,
there’s
a
vast
divide
in
the
current
market.
Lee
of
Layoffs.fyi
said
AI
is
driving
a
“return
to
rapid
hiring
and
expansion,”
even
as
layoffs
continue
elsewhere.
Salaries
for
AI
engineers
rose
12%
from
the
third
to
fourth
quarter
last
year,
and
the
average
salary
for
a
senior
AI
engineer
nationally
is
more
than
$190,000,
according
to
Comprehensive.io.

Amit
Mittal
has
been
on
both
sides
of
the
employment
market
—
previously
as
a
hiring
manager
and
now
as
a
job
seeker.

In
November,
Mittal
was
laid
off
from
AI
lending
company


Upstart,
where
he
worked
as
a
software
engineering
manager,
often
overseeing
interviews.
Mittal
said
he
witnessed
the
hiring
process
become
“a
lot
more
demanding”
as
layoffs
surged.

“There
was
a
lot
more
pressure
on
us
to
basically
raise
the
bar
higher
and
higher,”
he
said.
“Somebody
with
a
four-year
experience
in
the
past
would
have
had
a
pretty
good
chance
at
getting
a
good
job.
But
now
they’re
competing
against
people
who
have
six,
seven,
eight
years
of
experience
for
the
same
position.” 

Mittal,
who’s
from
India
and
has
lived
in
the
Chicago
area
since
2007,
has
lately
been
subject
to
a
very
different
kind
of
pressure.
Under
his
H-1B
visa,
Mittal
had
only
60
days
from
the
official
end
of
his
employment
to
find
a
new
job
in
the
tech
industry
in
order
to
stay
in
the
country.

“If
for
four
months,
I
have
to
pay
my
bills
by
driving
an
Uber
or
working
at
McDonald’s
flipping
burgers,
that’s
fine,”
he
said.
“But
that
mechanism
doesn’t
exist
for
me.”

Mittal
has
now
successfully
petitioned
to
obtain
a
separate
B-2
tourist
visa,
giving
him
an
extra
six
months
to
find
new
employment.
It
wasn’t
a
cheap
effort,
though.
He
estimated
he
spent
around
$8,000
on
legal
and
administrative
costs
tied
to
his
submission.

All
the
while,
Mittal
said
he’s
applied
for
about
110
jobs
to
no
avail.
He
attributed
the
dearth
of
success
to
employers’
reluctance
or
inability
to
sponsor
visa
holders.

“It
seems
like
the
possibilities
are
pretty
slim
right
now,
even
though
I
see
hundreds
of
postings
every
single
day,”
Mittal
said.

Bill
Vezey
was
laid
off
by
eBay
in
January
following
a
13-year
career
as
a
software
engineer
at
the
online
retailer.
He
said
he’s
learning
the
rules
of
the
“new
game,”
and
they’re
much
different
than
he
remembers. 

“Attainability
is
not
just
a
numbers
game,”
said
Vezey,
64,
who
lives
in
Santa
Cruz,
California.
“It
is
a
combination
of
how
well
you
brand
yourself,
about
your
access
through
networking
to
any
given
position
—
to
the
hidden
job
market.”

Vezey
said
he
hopes
to
be
rehired
at
his
longtime
employer
and
wants
to
remain
in
tech.

“I
am
kind
of
an
incurable
optimist,
despite
what
60-odd
years
of
living
have
brought,”
he
said.

Like
many
of
those
who
spoke
to
CNBC,
Powers
said
she
spends
her
days
tailoring
her
resume
for
openings,
scanning
online
job
boards
and
applying
for
newly
posted
positions.
She
networks
by
contacting
a
recruiter
or
hiring
manager
connected
to
each
role,
though
she
said
some
recruiters
have
ghosted
her
as
quickly
as
they’ve
expressed
interest.

She’s
had
a
few
interviews,
and
turned
down
one
job
offer.
That
position
would’ve
required
her
to
go
to
an
office
while
taking
a
more
than
50%
pay
cut
from
her
previous
job.
And
she’d
have
to
find
child
care.

“There’s
a
sense
of
impending
doom,”
Powers
said.
“There
is
a
point
where
the
money
runs
out
and
the
options
become
really
bleak.”

Still,
Powers
said
she’s
trying
to
stay
optimistic,
“because
giving
up
is
not
going
to
get
me
a
job.”

—
CNBC’s
Jennifer
Elias
contributed
to
this
report.

WATCH:

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