Let’s Talk About Those Layoffs in Tech

There’s no denying it: The job market in recent years has been volatile. 

It’s natural to see layoffs in technology specifically and wonder whether your job is safe, or the career path you’ve chosen is resilient enough to withstand whatever’s to come. 

Well, we’re here to tell you that even in the most difficult of times, tech skills are and will continue to be important. In fact, taking tech layoffs at face value is only going to hinder your job search and career success — here’s why.

Yes, there have been tech layoffs

Here are the facts: Many tech companies have laid off staff. According to tech layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi, more than 124,000 employees in the tech industry lost their jobs in 2024. TechCrunch reported some of the major players in recent layoffs, including tech giants such as Salesforce, Intel, and Microsoft, as well as smaller startups.

No doubt this news is intimidating for tech workers at similar companies or job seekers trying to break into the field. If you’ve ever been laid off or watched someone close to you leave their job suddenly, you know the experience can come with anxiety and heartbreak — not to mention, the mental and emotional exhaustion of trying to get your finances and career prospects in order.

We won’t pretend that layoffs are easy to handle and aren’t a possibility if you choose to work in tech. However, it’s key to broaden our perspective a bit to understand why even massive tech layoffs don’t indicate the industry is dead or dying.

But those numbers don’t tell the full story

Tech layoffs may not look great, but software development and similar expertise still hold significant weight in today’s job market. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the foremost authority on employment in this country, software developers, computer and information systems managers, data scientists, and information security analysts are among the occupations projected to experience the most job growth between now and 2032.

In fact, tech knowledge is key to three out of the top five professions that the BLS has predicted will see the most growth by 2032.

Looking at the stats, the first thing that stands out is that tech professions are projected to grow at rates exponentially higher than the average. All professions are expected to grow by just below 3% while data scientists are projected to experience a growth rate more than eleven times higher than that. Secondly, we’ll just repeat this for emphasis: tech occupies three out of these five spots. People in the know are expecting these skills to be crucial for years to come.

Big Tech is not all of tech

Part of what makes the tech sector appear so gloomy is the influence of Big Tech. When a tech company that’s a household name makes headlines for dropping thousands of employees, it’s hard not to think every company surrounding it is going through the same thing. Some are, of course — layoffs have unfortunately hit businesses of all shapes and sizes in the last couple of years.

But in general, for every tech company that’s laying off staff due to individual struggles such as lack of funding or a loss of a key client or revenue stream, there are several others that are beefing up hiring and actively recruiting tech talent. The job market is vast and ever growing — and you don’t need to work in Silicon Valley to have a fulfilling and lucrative tech career.

Just look at our graduates, 74% of whom avoid Big Tech in favor of unique experiences and more autonomy at small to medium-sized companies. Ninety percent of our employed students stay at their jobs for at least a year after graduating from our bootcamps, and the majority of these same students came from non-STEM backgrounds.

Tech skills are in demand outside of the tech industry

Our graduates have also discovered, with amazing success, that their skills can go beyond the typical software company or buzzy tech startup. 

Sheldon Kinsler_{From Sales to Tech: How Sheldon Kinsler Found a New Career and Community} worked in sales before deciding to join TripleTen’s Business Intelligence Analytics bootcamp. Missing a sense of community in his previous job, he was excited by the opportunity to collaborate with others in a learning environment. “I was really nervous going in because I thought it'd just be like a whole bunch of code from day one,” he says, adding, “I was able to get through it just thanks to the tutors and the community. Everyone’s super helpful and will answer pretty much any question you have.”

After sharing his bootcamp experience on social media, Kinsler was quickly able to land a job at insurance brokerage company RCM&D.

“A day in the life since I’ve gotten this job in tech — it’s really nice…I get to celebrate all the wins with my team. When the person who’s training me, someone who’s been doing this for 10 years, gets a piece of code right, he still fist bumps me, saying, ‘Heck yeah. Score one for the data team.’” Sheldon Kinsler, TripleTen grad

Evgeniia Unzhakova_{How an Immigrant Landed a Career in the US: Evgeniia Unzhakova’s TripleTen Story}, similarly, got a job as a research analyst at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill thanks to the skills she mastered at TripleTen. If you didn’t know such a job existed in education, well, Unzhakova says data science is only expanding in her industry.

Modern science is taking place around data — big data, small data. It’s always about data. I think it’s the future.

Evgeniia Unzhakova TripleTen grad

Explore tech in more detail

Have we given you something to think about? Less worried about tech layoffs and more concerned about how to market yourself to employers? Curious to learn more about the future of working in tech? Check out our Employer Report, which delves even further into the needs and investments of today’s top companies — whom they want to hire, the most in-demand skills, and which roles they’re most keen to recruit for.