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🏦 Layoffs Don’t Affect Programmers So Much
Big tech layoffs suggest developers are in trouble. But the reality is very different.
You must have heard about the last round of layoffs across the tech industry including some big tech companies. The overall message that creeps out from it is that software engineers and programmers are laid off by hundreds of thousands of people.
The public reception is however far from the reality.
Of course it does not matter who is affected by a layoff. Especially now, when layoffs are like this crazy, distopian lottery, when people are informed that if they don’t get a layoff message until Monday, they are fine.
Just to receive an email that they have to wait again in a next round of layoffs.
I can’t even imagine how soul crushing it is to work at a company that funds such horrendous festive of leaving people without the money for they basic needs.
Partially it’s because we live in an era of an aggressive tech capitalism (as a side note: it’s equal similarly bad as any other system that eventually becomes agrresive).
Partially it can be also attributed to the fact that HR departments are the ones mostly affected by the layoffs. There is no one sane to layoff people while preserving the company dignity anymore.
Thanks to a research done by Interviewing.io in last year we can understand more or less better who is affected mostly by the layoffs.
It’s not programmers.

50% of recruiters were laid off. It may indicate that the companies will hire less people in 2023, but it may also indicate companies decided to lower the number of recruiters while still hiring people. Personally, while I like recruiters, I had the feeling for the last years, that there may be more recruiters than people actually wanting to do the job, especially in tech.
48% of HR departments got laid off. I wonder how it will affect work environment quality, but early sings are not enthusiastic.
On the third position are finances with 30% of employees in these departments getting laid off. What I don’t understand here is how it’s possible to over employ in this…