Hundreds of thousands of workers have been laid off in the past year as the 'tech wreck' continues.
Workers in Australia aren't immune to the fallout from the 'tech wreck'.Source:SBS, Getty/Leon Wang
Belinda* describes the day she was made redundant, along with around half of Twitter's team in Sydney, as a surreal moment.
Like thousands of other employees of thesocial media giant around the world, Belinda had received an email on 4 November saying her job would be cut and she would be told via email if still had a role.
Then halfway through her work day, Belinda was locked out of her computer and programs.
Even before receiving the confirmation email I knew, because I'd been locked out of everything, she said.
Belinda described the day as surreal, as much of the drama unfolded in public view on Twitter.
It wasn't so much that we were being laid off that was shocking, it was the way that it happened. I just had never heard of anything being played out like that before, she said. Nobody knew what was going on.
Belinda said most of the team worked remotely, so her colleagues gathered in a Zoom call until the end of their shifts, and then met for a drink afterwards.
I think it was just 'end of an era' vibes - we loved our jobs.
She estimates between 60 to 100 people worked in Twitter's Sydney team and believes around half of them were made redundant. In total, around half of Twitter's 7,500 employees worldwide were laid off as part of newly appointed chief executive officer
Elon Musk'soverhaul of the company.
Elon Musk laid off around half of Twitter's 7,500 employees worldwide.Source:Getty/Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto
Mass layoffs hit Australians
Twitter was just one of the most high-profile tech companies to announce mass layoffs in the past year, a trend that has been dubbed the 'tech wreck'.
Streaming giant Netflix cut 450 jobs in 2022, with two rounds of lay-offs in May and June, while at the end of August, Snapchat's parent company Snap let go of around 1,200 people - about 20 per cent of its employees. Meta - the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp - slashed 11,000 jobs, or some 13 per cent of staff, in November.
The new year brought more grim news for workers in big tech, with online retail giant Amazon announcing in January that it would cut more than 18,000 jobs, while Microsoft also said another 10,000 employees would be made redundant in coming months, following two smaller rounds of layoffs.
While most of the layoffs have impacted employees in the United States, Australians like Belinda who worked for these companies have also been affected.
Smaller tech companies have also made staff redundant in Australia and while these haven't created the same headlines as larger-scale layoffs, the impacts can be just as devastating.
Mark43, a US company that builds online platforms for public safety organisations like police, fire or other emergency services, made its entire Australian office redundant at the end of June.
Former staff member Gary* estimates around 70 people were laid off, with most of them based in Sydney.
Gary said he wasn't entirely surprised at the move as there had been signs the company was struggling financially. There had been a freeze on new roles and pay rises, as well as two prior rounds of redundancies.
We knew that the situation wasn't very good, he said.
It took Gary around a month to find another job but he believes it may have been harder for others who had less experience.
He was also lucky that tech redundancies had only just begun, so he found there was still a fairly high demand for tech workers.
On average it took people like two to three months [to find new jobs], which isn't too bad because the company also gave us three months of severance, he said.
But Gary believes there is a sense of concern among tech workers in Australia due to the current economic climate and the fact that many of the bigger companies - like Atlassian for example - had also put in place hiring freezes or slowed down hiring.
I think a couple of years ago, people were job hopping every six months for more [compensation], he said.
People were looking for jobs and asking for massive salary packages because they could, because there was huge demand.
In particular, Gary said there were jobs left and right in late 2021 and early 2022. There were new adverts going up every day or two for jobs in his field.
Right now, no one's like potentially looking for a new job, they're just trying to hunker down at the job that they have, he said.
It feels like people definitely prize job security more than trying to find interesting jobs ... it definitely feels like the market has slowed.
SBS News contacted Mark43 for comment.
'Mourning for a job that doesn't exist anymore'
Employees made redundant from the tech industry, especially those who were not software engineers or tech workers but were instead employed in the HR or marketing departments for example, also face the prospect of significant salary cuts.
Belinda, who did not have a technology-related job at Twitter, said she had been paid much better than others working in the same profession and got a substantial pay rise when she joined the social media giant. She is unsure if she will be able to get another role outside the tech industry that offers a similar wage.
I've had people reach out with gigs since November but they've all come with enormous pay cuts ... and I can't really afford that, she said.
Better times: Delta Goodrem poses ahead of a fan party at Twitter's Sydney headquarters in 2016.Source:Getty/Don Arnold/WireImage
Twitter also paid for private health insurance and IVF treatment for staff, something Belinda took advantage of.
We were incredibly privileged to have the benefit of IVF support ... we used that benefit and I acknowledge how lucky that makes us, she said.
But having now had a baby, Belinda said she was unsure whether Twitter would still reimburse her for that treatment, following her redundancy.
Despite the lucrative paycheck, she said she wasn't sure if she would continue to work in the tech industry as there was no job security anymore.
I'm definitely thinking about career changes, I just don't know what that will look like, she said.
I'm scared I won't find a job that I love, I was wonderfully, beautifully blessed to have a job that I loved doing every day.
Belinda said she didn't think she could go back to Twitter even if it offered her old job back.
I think I'm in mourning for a job that I had but that job doesn't exist anymore, she said.
It's not an experience I can recapture, it's not the same.
Australian tech workers face lower wages
Sung Ho Lee, regional director at specialist recruitment agency Michael Page Australia, said there were still plenty of tech jobs being offered in Australia as long as people were flexible and open to doing different things.
You've got some great people that are out there looking for employment, they just might have to be flexible when it comes to salary now, he said.
The last three years technology workers really had the pick of the bunch, they really could dictate and determine the five things they wanted in a job and got all five things. Now it's probably four things, maybe three things.
He said workers in Australia were probably in a better position than those in America, where hundreds of thousands of employees had been let go.
According to tech site Layoffs.fyi, around 235,000 industry employees have lost their jobs in the US since the beginning of 2022.
In Australia, he had heard of some businesses letting go of dozens of people but not a big tech player letting go of thousands. Salesforce may be the biggest - it laid off 8,000 employees worldwide in January - although exact numbers locally are unclear.
Mr Lee said it did not appear that overseas workers were yet flowing into Australia to take up tech jobs, possibly due to the cost of living, the ease of getting visas and other factors.
He said he had not noticed many more people signing up with his agency, although this might be because it was January and this could change later in the year.
The tightness of Australia's labour market also meant software engineers were still in high demand.
We're coming out of the biggest talent shortage that Australia's ever faced in 2022, so a softening of the greatest shortage is a welcome change I think for both technology leaders as well as recruiters, Mr Lee said.
Even those who were not tech workers should be ok if they had transferable skills, Mr Lee said.
I think if there's a lesson that anyone can learn over the last three years, is it's surprising to see what skills are in demand versus the skills that are not ... and how quickly the market can change, he said.
So if you're nimble and agile ... you'll be in a much better spot than others.
Layoffs were a 'knee-jerk reaction'
Information systems expert Professor Barney Tan of the University of NSW, also believes the impact of the tech layoffs is likely to be minimal in Australia because so many large businesses have been crying out for tech talent.
He believes the tech layoffs in general were a knee-jerk reaction.
Most of those that have done the big layoffs are companies that have experienced phenomenal growth during COVID-19, which led to an increase in the demand for online services, he said.
Now, a confluence of a number of factors is behind the current situation, which includes over hiring during the pandemic, a decline in demand post-COVID, rising inflation and interest rates, and an uncertain economic landscape.
In the longer term, Professor Tan believes it's likely tech talent will move to start-ups and other traditional businesses.
Many younger people may have been drawn to the larger tech firms because they want to work at the cutting edge of innovation. But there are a good number of innovations that are actually driven by smaller tech start-ups, which have traditionally found it hard to compete for talent as there are constraints on the material and pay incentives they can offer, he said.
It is not that the market for tech talents is shrinking, but just a period of adjustment where those organisations that were more attractive to tech talents and had the resources to hire almost indiscriminately during a period of boom, are now finding that they have to let them go.
*Names have been changed.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/end-of-an-era-what-the-tech-wreck-means-for-australian-workers/t9x0m2915
