In 2022, the IT jobs market has been a little strange, its been hugely influenced as we emerge from the mayhem of Covid 19, which still lingers today, but were hit the Russia invading Ukraine which spiralled energy costs which resulted in crazy inflation growth that will perhaps plague the economy in 2023 before things settle a little in 2024. With rising interest rates, the folks on Wall Street and the stock market in general started to realign its priorities with mass sell offs leaving public tech companies with huge valuation drops, for example Meta is down 64%, this is on the back of poor results and investors are no longer will to offer the huge multiples of Revenue as they dash for safer and less riskier investments.
With all the uncertainty in the IT jobs market, we have seen mass layoffs from the Large Tech companies, once again meta laying off 10,000 people, Amazon, Stripe the list goes on also laid off people in the thousands due to overgrowth in the Covid 19 years. 2022 therefor has seen a lot of alignment to market conditions. Even with these layoff’s not only in Ireland, but across the US and world also, there is still more people working in the economy now then there was for the last 20 years. So, the tech labour market continues to grow, and I expect to see that through 2023.
In 2022 we did see a slight shift in some HR planning, where hiring and retention were priorities, I have seen a shift to more team alignment, resizing and getting more out of the people they have. Let’s not kid ourselves here either, people are still hiring and trying to retain their top talent. Companies looking to hire tech talent are still circling like vultures to snatch Software Engineering talent which remains in short supply. Albeit the employer is starting to regain some control over hiring, wage control etc, Software Engineers are still demanding large salaries. They will get the inflated wages too.
Are IT folks going to return to the office in 2023?
In 2022 and I think we will see this into 2023 is where work takes place. With Remote working the norm over the last few years, we are starting to see companies gradually move back to a more in office type work. Larger tech companies with fancy offices want to see people back in them. I expect with the cooling job market there will be teams called back worldwide to 3 odd days a week with an element of flexibility to start with. That flexibility will need to work both ways for businesses to hang on to their key talent and job seekers. For those looking for remote only, there likely to see opportunities for sure, but those opportunities might soon be limited to the type of work they are likely to carry out.
Hiring IT jobs and keeping tech talent has never been more expensive, then it is today.
Wage inflation has ragged on in 2022. I have heard some crazy salary expectations in my time. For example, a Back End Java Engineer based in Dublin. Has less than 2 years’ experience requesting “but flexible” €100,000 to make a move. I thought that was a reflection on that Engineers confidence in the job market. But, its not unique to that person. Its how wage inflation had gotten slightly out of hand. With all the big tech lay offs and hiring freezes. Perhaps the big gains for SME’s and indigenous companies as we will see those salary expectations realign in 2023.
The tech labour market will continue to grow in 2023. There is little doubt about that, most economists would tell you the same. Will we see the same growth levels? No. But we will see growth? We will see new companies make their mark and continue to innovate like they always have. I think we will see more movement towards the office. I go into a little more detail on that in this blog.
The big question for 2023 is, what will happen to Twitter? Is Elon’s reputation going to take down his other companies, so much to uncover there.
For now, ill leave you there, 2023 will be an exciting year, inflation will continue to annoy us all. To those who are considering hiring in 2023, id love to assist if you need the help. Please do click here for more details on what we do at Elwood Roberts.