Latest news with #techlayoffs
Times
21 hours ago
- Business
- Times
A machine took my tech job, so I became blue collar
For eight years, the most physical work Tabby Toney Douglass did was to move a cursor around a screen. Three months ago, she swapped her mouse for a welding gun and a fire-resistant jacket. Douglass is one of nearly 250,000 tech workers who have been laid off in the United States since the start of last year. Artificial intelligence and cost-cutting are wreaking havoc in an industry previously considered best equipped to cope with technological advancement. Software engineers, whose area of study was once seen as a sure-fire path to a reliable six-figure income, have been particularly affected. Instead of trying to stay in the industry, Douglass decided to follow her creative passion: welding. She is not alone. Many former tech workers are turning to traditional blue-collar jobs as a fallback option. The Times spoke to three of them.
Times
a day ago
- Business
- Times
I was fired from my tech job. Here's why I picked up the welding gun
For eight years, the most physical work Tabby Toney Douglass did was to move a cursor around a screen. Three months ago, she swapped her mouse for a welding gun and a fire-resistant jacket. Douglass is one of nearly 250,000 tech workers who have been laid off in the United States since the start of last year. Artificial intelligence and cost-cutting measures are causing havoc in an industry previously considered best equipped to cope with technological advancement. Software engineers, whose area of study was once seen as a sure-fire path to a reliable six-figure income, have been particularly affected. Instead of trying to stay in the industry, Douglass decided to follow her creative passion: welding. She is not alone. Many former tech workers are turning to traditional blue-collar jobs as a fallback option. We spoke to three of them. Tabby Toney Douglass, a 37-year-old living in Oklahoma City, graduated with a PhD in history from Oklahoma State University and initially worked as a lecturer and in museums. She discovered that the non-profit world did not provide her with a reliable salary, and decided to teach herself to code. She initially worked as a software tester, and was later hired at a payroll and human resources company as a software engineer. Douglass said she first noticed the emergence of AI in her work about a year ago. At first, it was useful to have a new tool to reduce her workload. 'Then a lot of companies started to think 'Oh, we can replace people with that'. It's very short-sighted,' she said. In May, Douglass was laid off for the second time in three years. She was burnt out and unsatisfied with the long hours chained to a computer, and decided to take a month's break to recharge. Douglass grew up on a farm in Oklahoma, and was introduced to welding as a toddler in her grandfather's garage. She recalled wearing his protective mask and it coming down to her knees. 'I remember him telling me, 'Don't look at the spark',' she said. While deciding her next career move, Douglass borrowed a welding gun, clamps, gloves, glasses and fire-resistant jacket from a relative. 'I enjoyed the creative side of it,' she said. 'Metallurgy involves knowing what tools to use and how to execute it in certain situations, so there's still a thinking aspect to it. And that's when I realised, 'I don't want to work in software any more'.' She applied to get into several welding trade schools, but found they were fully booked for two years due to the high demand for tradespeople in Oklahoma's oil and gas industry. Douglass said she eventually 'got lucky' and was accepted into a five-month intensive course. She feels confident she could go straight into work, but would rather be certified. 'I don't want a building to fall down,' she said. Douglass is not concerned about the physical side of the work. She has a black belt in karate and lifts weights at the gym. Besides, it will be a breeze compared to having to sit in front of a computer for eight or nine hours a day. 'I don't sit still well,' she said. Neither is she bothered about working in an industry where men make up about 90 per cent of the workforce. 'There aren't too many female welders, but there aren't many female software engineers either. I was usually the only woman on my team,' she said. Recruiters she spoke to said some employers preferred to hire female welders because they showed greater attention to detail in their work. Mid-level software engineers can make anywhere from $66,000 to $90,000 in Oklahoma. Salaries for remote workers are higher, ranging from $100,000 to $120,000. Douglass said she would make $40,000 to $50,000 for her first two years as a welder, but could easily double or triple that within a few years. 'It'll definitely be a huge pay cut at first, but once I get some experience I'd like to travel interstate and work at shipyards. That's where the money is.' Travis Ross, 49, started out in tech in Los Angeles in the late 1990s working as a 3D graphic designer in film and television. He created computer-generated replicas of human characters, known as 'digital doubles', for movies like Blade: Trinity and Batman & Robin. When the dot-com crash hit, Ross moved to San Diego and found work on early Sony Playstation NBA and Major League Baseball video games, doing 3D scanning of baseball and basketball players' faces. 'We had a lot of fun in those days. We were innovating, we were creating new techniques and it was a blast,' he said. A few years later, in 2008, the bottom fell out of the tech world again as the financial crisis rippled through economies worldwide. 'It was really rough, and I ended up getting laid off with very small kids in a terrible economy,' Ross said. Film production studios began chasing tax incentives in Canada and Asia, many of Ross's friends in the industry followed the work overseas. But with three young children, that was not an option for him. When the pandemic kicked off in 2020, he wound up moving to Nashville to do user research for a media company. 'Then in late 2023, I was driving home after being laid off again and I just thought, 'I'm going to be a handyman, I would rather swing a hammer',' he said. Ross started researching how to set up a home improvement company. He had always had the practical skills to fix and maintain his homes, and helped friends with renovation projects. 'But I knew if I wanted to be taken seriously, I needed to get a licence as a home improvement contractor. I got bonded and insured. Here I am a year later and I'm still doing it,' he said. Ross does kitchen remodelling, floor installations, and builds patios, playgrounds and sheds. But he prefers custom-designed work: furniture, walk-in closets and faux fireplaces that he designs with his clients, fabricates and then installs the finished product. 'I was recently hired to be a subcontractor for a home building project, and I went in and literally nothing but the foundation had been poured,' he said. 'The little kids were running around, they're like, 'This is our home, this is going to be the bedroom, this is going to be the bathroom.' 'When you see that, it's very gratifying. Whereas in tech, you don't see the results of what you're doing for months. It's a slow, grinding, weird process that my brain never enjoyed. 'I wanted to build up my skills in an area that AI can't completely dominate. 'My three kids are teenagers now and they're all involved in the business.' Ross used to earn between $110,000 to $150,000 a year in tech, which comes out to about $72 an hour. Now he makes $125 an hour, a standard for handymen in the Nashville area. 'The money is inconsistent and cash flow is always an issue for me but it's worth the effort,' he said. 'What I'd say to someone coming out of the tech space who is disenchanted or unemployed, is 'What is it that gives you energy? That you lose track of time in?' And then just keep doing that until you have a business.' Chris Jeffs, 58, was born in the UK and began his tech career working as a software developer in Germany in the 1990s before moving to the US in 1995. 'It was incredibly rewarding to build a technology platform from the ground up because you see the entire evolution of the product,' he said. 'Then I moved into software management roles at mid-sized multinationals, and started to run into the kinds of headaches associated with the way larger corporations work. I enjoyed the work, until I didn't.' By 2018, Jeffs had lost his passion for tech and was ready to take a leap. He had two school-aged children and the extensive travel that the job required had become exhausting. Jeffs came from a family of accomplished carpenters and always found the work appealing. His eldest brother does custom joinery for old cottages in the UK, and his father dabbled in it as a hobby. 'I admired what they did,' he said. When his son joined a theatre group in Atlanta, Jeffs volunteered with a couple of other dads to help build the sets. 'I wouldn't say I wasn't a craftsman by any means, but I knew I liked it enough that I could give it a go when I quit the corporate world,' he said. Over the Christmas holidays, Jeffs brainstormed how to set up a woodworking business and came up with a basic business plan. 'I had a budget of like $20,000 to get started, and I figured if it failed after a year, I could go back to the corporate world,' he said. Jeffs converted his 14 sq ft basement into a workshop. He bought a table saw and an air filtration system for the sawdust for about $7,000. 'I didn't know what I'd make or what I'd be able to sell, so I tried a handful of different things to see what would stick,' he said. 'I built backpack organisers and picket fences to put around a Christmas tree. I'd always had this idea to make custom-designed drawer organisers for silverware, and at that time I was one of only a handful of people selling them on Etsy. 'Within six months, they took off. After a year and a half, I had outgrown our basement and managed to find a lease on an 800 sq ft workshop,' he said. 'I take a lot of pride in my work. I'm really scared that customers won't like what I do, and when you start getting bad reviews on Etsy, that can kill your business. 'A lot of people ask me, 'do you get bored?' And I say 'not really', because each drawer is different. They're all designed uniquely for that customer.' During the first few years as Jeffs was building an online presence, his income was a small fraction of his corporate salary. 'By the third year, I was making around 60 per cent of my corporate income, and it now fluctuates between 75 and 90 per cent,' he said. Being his own boss brings a tremendous amount of freedom. Jeffs typically works four to five hours a day in the workshop and another one or two hours talking to customers about orders. 'Compared to the ten-hour days of the tech-corporate world, I am now able to dictate how much I choose to work, and therefore my income,' he said. 'In the tech world that I came from, as you get into your fifties and sixties, it's very, very hard to find new opportunities. You're perceived as having aged out. 'If you're fortunate enough to have a little bit of wiggle room with finances or personal life or whatever it may be, I'd encourage people to take a leap of faith. Worst-case scenario it fails and you go back and get a proper job.'
The Independent
30-07-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Is AI causing tech worker layoffs? That's what CEOs suggest, but the reality is complicated
If you read the typical 2025 mass layoff notice from a tech industry CEO, you might think that artificial intelligence cost workers their jobs. The reality is more complicated, with companies trying to signal to Wall Street that they're making themselves more efficient as they prepare for broader changes wrought by AI. A new report Wednesday from career website Indeed says tech job postings in July were down 36% from their early 2020 levels, with AI one but not the most obvious factor in stalling a rebound. ChatGPT's debut in late 2022 also corresponded with the end of a pandemic-era hiring binge, making it hard to isolate AI's role in the hiring doldrums that followed. 'We're kind of in this period where the tech job market is weak, but other areas of the job market have also cooled at a similar pace,' said Brendon Bernard, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. 'Tech job postings have actually evolved pretty similarly to the rest of the economy, including relative to job postings where there really isn't that much exposure to AI.' The template for tech CEO layoff notices in 2025 includes an AI pivot That nuance is not always clear from the last six months of tech layoff emails, which often include a nod to AI in addition to expressions of sympathy. When he announced mass layoffs earlier this year, Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach invited employees to consider the bigger picture: 'Companies everywhere are reimagining how work gets done, and the increasing demand for AI has the potential to drive a new era of growth for Workday." Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost explained that a need to shift resources to 'accelerate investments' in AI was one of the reasons the company had to cut 1,350, or about 9%, of workers. The 'Why We're Doing This' section of CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz's announcement of 5% job cuts said the cybersecurity company needed to double down on AI investments to 'accelerate execution and efficiency.' 'AI flattens our hiring curve, and helps us innovate from idea to product faster,' Kurtz wrote. It's not just U.S. companies. In India, tech giant Tata Consultancy Services recently characterized its 12,000 layoffs, or 2% of its workforce, as part of a shift to a 'Future-Ready organization' that would be realigning its workforce and 'deploying AI at scale for our clients and ourselves.' Even the Japanese parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor has cited an AI shift in its notice of 1,300 layoffs at the job search and workplace review sites. AI spending, not replacement, is a more common factor Microsoft, which is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday, has announced layoffs of about 15,000 workers this year even as its profits have soared. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told employees last week the layoffs were 'weighing heavily' on him but also positioned them as an opportunity to reimagine the company's mission for an AI era. Promises of a leaner approach have been welcomed on Wall Street, especially from tech giants that are trying to justify huge amounts of capital spending to pay for the data centers, chips and other components required to power AI technology. 'It's this sort of double-edged sword restructuring that I think a lot of tech giants are encountering in this age of AI, where they have to find the right balance between maintaining an appropriate headcount, but also allowing artificial intelligence to come to the forefront,' said Bryan Hayes, a strategist at Zacks Investment Research. Google said last week it would raise its budget for capital expenditures by an additional $10 billion to $85 billion. Microsoft is expected to outline similar guidance soon. The role of AI in job replacement is hard to track One thing is clear to Hayes: Microsoft's job cuts improve its profit margin outlook for the 2026 fiscal year that started in July. But what these broader tech industry layoffs mean for the employment prospects of tech workers can be harder to gauge. 'Will AI replace some of these jobs? Absolutely,' said Hayes. 'But it's also going to create a lot of jobs. Employees that are able to leverage artificial intelligence and help the companies innovate, and create new products and services, are going to be the ones that are in high demand.' He pointed to Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which is on a spree of offering lucrative packages to recruit elite AI scientists from competitors such as OpenAI. The reports published by Indeed on Wednesday show that AI specialists are faring better than standard software engineers, but even those jobs are not where they have been. 'Machine-learning engineers — which is kind of the canonical AI job — those job postings are still noticeably above where they were pre-pandemic, though they've actually come down compared to their 2022 peak,' said Bernard, the Indeed economist. 'They've also been impacted by the cyclical ups and downs of the sector.' Economists are watching for AI's effects on entry-level tech jobs Tech hiring has particularly plunged in AI hubs such as the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as Boston and Seattle, according to Indeed. But in looking more closely at which tech workers were least likely to get hired, Indeed found the deepest impact on entry-level jobs in the tech industry, with those with at least five years of experience faring better. The hiring declines were sharpest in entry-level tech industry jobs that involve marketing, administrative assistance and human resources, which all involve tasks that overlap with the strength of the latest generative AI tools that can help create documents and images. 'The plunge in tech hiring started before the new AI age, but the shifting experience requirements is something that happened a bit more recently,' Bernard said.
Associated Press
30-07-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Is AI causing tech worker layoffs? That's what CEOs suggest, but the reality is complicated
If you read the typical 2025 mass layoff notice from a tech industry CEO, you might think that artificial intelligence cost workers their jobs. The reality is more complicated, with companies trying to signal to Wall Street that they're making themselves more efficient as they prepare for broader changes wrought by AI. A new report Wednesday from career website Indeed says tech job postings in July were down 36% from their early 2020 levels, with AI one but not the most obvious factor in stalling a rebound. ChatGPT's debut in late 2022 also corresponded with the end of a pandemic-era hiring binge, making it hard to isolate AI's role in the hiring doldrums that followed. 'We're kind of in this period where the tech job market is weak, but other areas of the job market have also cooled at a similar pace,' said Brendon Bernard, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. 'Tech job postings have actually evolved pretty similarly to the rest of the economy, including relative to job postings where there really isn't that much exposure to AI.' The template for tech CEO layoff notices in 2025 includes an AI pivot That nuance is not always clear from the last six months of tech layoff emails, which often include a nod to AI in addition to expressions of sympathy. When he announced mass layoffs earlier this year, Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach invited employees to consider the bigger picture: 'Companies everywhere are reimagining how work gets done, and the increasing demand for AI has the potential to drive a new era of growth for Workday.' Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost explained that a need to shift resources to 'accelerate investments' in AI was one of the reasons the company had to cut 1,350, or about 9%, of workers. The 'Why We're Doing This' section of CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz's announcement of 5% job cuts said the cybersecurity company needed to double down on AI investments to 'accelerate execution and efficiency.' 'AI flattens our hiring curve, and helps us innovate from idea to product faster,' Kurtz wrote. It's not just U.S. companies. In India, tech giant Tata Consultancy Services recently characterized its 12,000 layoffs, or 2% of its workforce, as part of a shift to a 'Future-Ready organization' that would be realigning its workforce and 'deploying AI at scale for our clients and ourselves.' Even the Japanese parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor has cited an AI shift in its notice of 1,300 layoffs at the job search and workplace review sites. AI spending, not replacement, is a more common factor Microsoft, which is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday, has announced layoffs of about 15,000 workers this year even as its profits have soared. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told employees last week the layoffs were 'weighing heavily' on him but also positioned them as an opportunity to reimagine the company's mission for an AI era. Promises of a leaner approach have been welcomed on Wall Street, especially from tech giants that are trying to justify huge amounts of capital spending to pay for the data centers, chips and other components required to power AI technology. 'It's this sort of double-edged sword restructuring that I think a lot of tech giants are encountering in this age of AI, where they have to find the right balance between maintaining an appropriate headcount, but also allowing artificial intelligence to come to the forefront,' said Bryan Hayes, a strategist at Zacks Investment Research. Google said last week it would raise its budget for capital expenditures by an additional $10 billion to $85 billion. Microsoft is expected to outline similar guidance soon. The role of AI in job replacement is hard to track One thing is clear to Hayes: Microsoft's job cuts improve its profit margin outlook for the 2026 fiscal year that started in July. But what these broader tech industry layoffs mean for the employment prospects of tech workers can be harder to gauge. 'Will AI replace some of these jobs? Absolutely,' said Hayes. 'But it's also going to create a lot of jobs. Employees that are able to leverage artificial intelligence and help the companies innovate, and create new products and services, are going to be the ones that are in high demand.' He pointed to Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which is on a spree of offering lucrative packages to recruit elite AI scientists from competitors such as OpenAI. The reports published by Indeed on Wednesday show that AI specialists are faring better than standard software engineers, but even those jobs are not where they have been. 'Machine-learning engineers — which is kind of the canonical AI job — those job postings are still noticeably above where they were pre-pandemic, though they've actually come down compared to their 2022 peak,' said Bernard, the Indeed economist. 'They've also been impacted by the cyclical ups and downs of the sector.' Economists are watching for AI's effects on entry-level tech jobs Tech hiring has particularly plunged in AI hubs such as the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as Boston and Seattle, according to Indeed. But in looking more closely at which tech workers were least likely to get hired, Indeed found the deepest impact on entry-level jobs in the tech industry, with those with at least five years of experience faring better. The hiring declines were sharpest in entry-level tech industry jobs that involve marketing, administrative assistance and human resources, which all involve tasks that overlap with the strength of the latest generative AI tools that can help create documents and images. 'The plunge in tech hiring started before the new AI age, but the shifting experience requirements is something that happened a bit more recently,' Bernard said.
Yahoo
28-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Fuku AI Responds to Tech Layoffs in Singapore with Scalable AI Recruitment Platform
SINGAPORE, July 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- As global tech companies implement large-scale workforce reductions in Singapore. Local HR-tech startup Fuku AI is addressing the employment gap with its AI recruitment platform designed to streamline hiring and support workforce realignment. With the vast number of tech jobs lost in Singapore this year, the nation's technology sector is undergoing a critical transformation. According to a Channel News Asia report, this wave of tech layoffs in Singapore reflects a broader global trend: companies are pivoting toward AI and automation to boost efficiency, phasing out redundant roles. While the short-term impact has disrupted careers, long-term demand for digitally skilled professionals remains strong. These changes signal a recalibration across the tech industry, where hiring priorities are shifting toward AI-focused roles, data science, cybersecurity, and cloud computing. Despite the disruption, Singapore remains a strategic hub for tech talent. Public and private sector employers are continuing to recruit in high-growth areas, as highlighted by recent job market insights from The Straits Times. However, with increasing pressure to hire efficiently, many employers are rethinking their approach to recruitment. This is where Fuku AI's automated recruitment platform plays a pivotal role. Using AI-driven hiring solutions, Fuku AI helps companies fill critical roles faster through: AI talent mapping AI-generated job-role matching Automated candidate outreach Streamlined candidate screening and evaluation Companies using the platform report a reduction in recruitment cycles from weeks to days, with up to 80% shorter time-to-hire. "Our AI-recruitment platform automates sourcing, screening, outreach—even interview evaluation—matching retrenched professionals and passive talent in under a minute," said Kevin Gao, Founder and CEO of Fuku AI. "We're helping companies find the right people, right now—without the delays of traditional hiring methods." Fuku AI is gaining traction as a cost-effective alternative to legacy hiring platforms, appealing to both SMEs and larger enterprises seeking AI in HR technologies to manage high-volume or specialized hiring needs. Despite current disruptions in the job market, Fuku AI positions itself as a vital force in accelerating employment recovery. The platform's mission is to support both displaced professionals and growing companies—delivering future-ready hiring tools for a future-ready workforce. About Fūkū AI Fūkū AI is a human-guided AI recruitment platform dedicated to transforming the hiring landscape. By integrating advanced artificial intelligence with human expertise, we streamline the recruitment process, enabling companies to discover, evaluate, and engage exceptional candidates more efficiently. For more information, visit: | For media enquiries, please contact: Kevin Gao, CEOFūkū AIkevin@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
