The job losses will also affect moonshot technologies as companies hunker down to pursuing profitable businesses. This could slow down innovation but is healthy for an industry that had become accustomed to stratospheric valuations leading to a decade of runaway hiring. US technology companies are still hiring more employees than they are laying off, sharpening the focus on profit. Most technology workers in the US who have lost jobs are expected to find new ones in three months. But these workers are mostly in the US on work visas that set out a two-month deadline for reemployment. The human cost is higher than what tightness in the technology job market would suggest.
The overall job market in the US will weaken as higher borrowing costs filter through. This is beginning to show in the layoff plans of Microsoft. The maker of office productivity software and cloud solutions for enterprises has typically had a cushion from changes in consumer behaviour that have affected Amazon and Meta and lockdown plays like Netflix. Some of the slack in enterprise demand is showing up in declining attrition levels of Indian IT service providers as well. This has a spillover on hiring by local startups.
