Laid-off techies facing headwinds on hiring freeze
Meta, Twitter, Salesforce, Lyft, Stripe, Uber and tech giants like Microsoft and Google, laid off employees as well as put a total freeze on new hirings; It’s learnt that only 20% of recruiters focusing on full-time positions
image for illustrative purpose
San Francisco/New Delhi: As thousands of techies lose jobs at Big Tech companies, most of them are finding it difficult to get jobs, as there is a freeze on new hirings at nearly every top firm, amid global macroeconomic conditions and recession fears.
Meta, Twitter, Salesforce, Lyft, Stripe, Uber and tech giants like Microsoft and Google, have laid off employees as well as put a total freeze on new hirings.
Indian-origin Nilesh Bhandare, 39, was a data engineer at Twitter. He told the San Francisco Chronicle that he has seen a dramatic turnaround in job availability in the market.
"While lots of recruiters have approached him, only about 20 per cent are focused on full-time positions. The rest are seeking contract workers - who can more easily be let go," the report said. The last time Bhandare scouted for jobs, the situation was entirely different. "My take is, no one wants to commit now for full time, because companies are not sure about the economic situation," Bhandare was quoted as saying in the report. It's an anxious time for tens of thousands of newly laid-off workers amid inflation pressures and recession concerns.
"Data suggests San Francisco's tech industry has been losing jobs for months," the report mentioned.
In January, there were 41,718 tech job listings in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro area, according to job-hunting site ZipRecruiter.
"By November 1, the jobs had plunged to 27,919 -- down a third," said the report.
Jobs in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area fell by a third, going from 28,421 tech job openings on January 1 to 18,748 on November 1. "We have seen labour market conditions deteriorate very substantially in a slice of the labour market," Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter chief economist, was quoted as saying.
Some people who were in earlier rounds of layoffs got jobs, but even they are pessimistic about the current market. Several Indian-origin people are left in the lurch as the clock is ticking for them as they are on work visas.
Himanshu V, an IIT-Kharagpur graduate who earlier worked at GitHub, Adobe and Flipkart, lost job at Meta. "I relocated to Canada to join #Meta and 2 days after joining, my journey came to an end as I am impacted by the massive layoff," Himanshu said in a LinkedIn post.
Raju Kadam, who worked at Meta for nine months, said he wasn't expecting to be laid off as he had had "strong performance in all quarters" since joining the social network.
"It abruptly came to an end. My clock to leave the USA has started today...help me find a job, otherwise I have to leave the USA with my kids," Kadam said, posting a picture of his sons, Arjun and Yash, in the US.
He said that he has been in the US for 16 years now and has seen the worst downturns, "but I never lost my job". "I will do whatever in my power to give them the best opportunity to succeed in the USA. Hence, I need a new job in the USA ASAP," Kadam posted on LinkedIn.
