Communications of the ACM
Layoffs and AI Are Changing Tech's Once-Invincible Job Market
One co-founder asked if her company was even being a responsible if it wasn't laying people off.
Credit: Getty Images
Tech industry workers are considering, some for the first time, that the promise of perpetual, lucrative employability may not be as solid as they once thought. Over 200,000 tech industry employees have been laid off this year, according to Layoffs.fyi.
"It used to be if you had a pulse and could do basic coding exercises, you could get a six-figure offer from a bunch of companies," says one startup executive. Workers accustomed to the Valley's charmed environment have had trouble resetting their expectations.
Amid the uncertainty, one strategy is to lean into the latest object of fascination: artificial intelligence.
The average salary for a senior software engineer who specializes in AI or machine learning is now 12% higher than the salary of one who doesn't, says Roger Lee, who runs Layoffs.fyi, which tracks industry layoffs, and Comprehensive.io, which monitors salaries.
While AI holds promise, it also threatens to upend the conventional wisdom that simply learning computer programming is insurance against job insecurity.
From Bloomberg Law
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