Glancing at the news... the job market looks rough — especially for tech workers. More than 57K layoffs were announced in the tech sector this month alone: IBM said yesterday it would cut nearly 4K jobs, Microsoft axed 10K, Salesforce said goodbye to 8K, and Amazon laid off 18K. Before that, Meta and Snap had let go of a combined 12K+ employees.
Dominating your LinkedIn feed… While tech layoffs turn heads, they pale in comparison to the jobs added during the industry-wide pandemic hiring spree. Google, which just laid off 12K employees, had added 37K jobs over the past year alone. California, where many tech cos are headquartered, gained 16.2K nonfarm payroll jobs in December, and the unemployment rate in the greater San Francisco area sat at just 2% last month. Meanwhile, Chicago is working hard to recruit laid-off foreign tech workers.
- Let go to level up: Last year, 80% of laid-off tech workers found a new gig within three months. And over half of those rehired got pay increases.
- Musical chairs: Three-fourths of let-go tech workers found new jobs in the same industry.
The tech market ≠ the job market… The "information" sector employs only 2% of US workers. Despite doom-and-gloom headlines, the overall unemployment rate is at historic lows and economists aren’t worried — so far. Just this week: Walmart, America’s largest private employer, said it's upping its minimum wage for store staff to retain and attract workers in a competitive labor market. We'll see whether that strength held up into the new year when January's employment numbers drop next week.