What we can expect from the IT job market in 2023

IT talent was hopping across industries and shifting careers left and right as 2022 started in search of better pay. However, as the year comes to a close, many of those highly paid IT positions have been laid off in the massive layoff sprees by tech giants. Although tech job openings are still as high as ever, many IT workers are wondering what the demand for their talent will be in the coming year. Businesses everywhere are concerned about budget cuts and retaining talent as they struggle to keep afloat in this turbulent economy.

What was the IT job market like 12 months ago?

January 2022 was the perfect time to be an IT job candidate. There was a high demand for skilled IT workers, making it easier for IT professionals to move across companies in their industry in search of large pay raises. As December 2021 ended, the number of IT job openings in the US was at 217,000. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the salaries for IT positions were up by 4.5% for the 12 months of 2021.

Return to office mandates for IT workers

Many big tech players demanded their IT workers return to the traditional work setting by issuing return-to-office mandates. While managers urged workers to come to the office for a majority of work days a week, employees questioned the need for doing so when they could work from home. Many tech workers cited high gas prices, long commute times, and the productivity of uninterrupted time as their reasons for wanting to work remotely. While tech giants like Apple, Google, and Microsoft were pushing their demands for a hybrid workweek, many other businesses kept advertising for remote work. Many IT professionals said that they consider the ability to work from home a priority when they are searching for new jobs.

The IT layoff season of 2022

As fall approached, almost all the big IT businesses started whispering about cost-cutting and the possibility of a recession. We saw Twitter cutting off the jobs of nearly half of its workforce after Elon Musk acquired the company. Just a week later, Meta followed along laying off 11,000 people. Amazon announced plans to lay off around 10,000 of its workers. These Amazon layoffs won’t stop until 2023. Salesforce is another tech giant that had plans for laying off workers in autumn 2022.

Although IT workers took a staggering blow with these massive layoffs, the October jobs report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reflected a strong labor market for IT professionals. The November jobs report also indicated how despite the large-scale layoffs; the IT industry still added almost 270,000 new jobs. However, there is a possibility that the November jobs report failed to capture all of the IT layoffs of the month. We will be able to see the slipped-up job cuts make an appearance on the December report in just a few days.

The IT job market outlook for 2023

The IT sector is sending out some pretty mixed signals with all the large-scale job cuts and the staggering number of new jobs opening up at the same time. As the new year starts, employers will be concerned about budgets and headcounts. Many big tech players lost their appeal due to the sudden layoffs this year. The work culture many tech businesses struggled to develop for several years shattered in a matter of a few weeks. As the reputation of these tech employers tarnishes as good places to work, tech talent will seek jobs elsewhere in 2023. While big tech players are shedding the workforce, there will still be a large number of tech projects opening up across industries. Tech workers with experience in fields like cybersecurity, cloud, and artificial intelligence would have no trouble finding employment in 2023.