“Layoff will continue as more ‘routine’ IT jobs are eliminated,” Janulaitis said. Like Challenger, Janco Associates CEO Victor Janulaitis places some of the blame for layoffs at the feet of AI, mainly because the technology’s ability to automate tasks will eliminate workforce needs. And Janco’s data paint a far grimmer picture for 156,000 unemployed IT pros. Janco Associates, however, puts IT unemployment at 5.5%, more than a full point above the national average. Unemployment rates in the US IT market vary wildly depending on whether the data comes from CompTIA, an IT trade association, or Janco Associates, an IT business consultancy.ĬompTIA pegs the IT unemployment rate in the US at 2.3%, more than a full percentage point below the national unemployment average of 3.7%. While unemployment rates remain near historic lows, getting a bead on how tech workers are faring is complicated. “The way I often describe this is AI is sucking the air out of almost all non-AI investments in the whole tech world." - Harvard Business School Professor David Yoffie. Recent layoffs appear to be driven by broader economic trends, including a strategic shift toward increased automation and AI adoption in various sectors, “though in most cases, companies point to cost-cutting as the main driver for layoffs,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. There are several factors behind the increase in layoffs historically, January tends to have more layoffs than other months as companies lean into restructuring plans, roll out reorganizations and set new fiscal directions. So far this year, 135 tech companies laid off nearly 34,000 workers, according to Layoffs.fyi, which began tracking tech layoffs in March 2020. That compares to all of 2023, when there were at least 154,000 layoffs at more than 1,000 tech companies, according to Layoffs.fyi. In 2024, tech employers making or planning significant cuts include SAP, EBay, Microsoft, and Google (Alphabet). While that January number is down 20% from the 102,943 cuts announced in January 2023, they’re a sign the tech job market is shifting. US-based employers announced 82,307 cuts in January, compared to 34,817 cuts the month before, according to the outplacement firm’s report.
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