Tom Paine
Like many analysts and tech workers, I find the job market for enterprise software workers to be difficult to read right now.
I’ll start with Oracle, which The Information reported as having laid off “several hundred people”, mostly from Advertising and Customer Experience services, while concentrating more on healthcare after completing its Cerner acquisition. Oracle’s cutbacks seem more a result of a long-planned restructuring than a reaction to current economic conditions, but I’m sure the economy is an added factor.
At other major enterprise software companies (Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Workday, Adobe ) there is little evidence of current layoffs. Salesforce, however, did lay off many in Hong Kong as part of a strategy to outsource China operations to Alibaba Cloud.
If you want to look for weakness at Salesforce, a good place to look at is its ecosystem, composed of companies that receive a high percentage of revenue selling to Salesforce customers.
Chicago-based Copado, which creates Devops tools primarily for Salesforce customers, recently laid “more than 100” of its 700 employees. Not clear why; Copado had recently expanded its efforts to the SAP community. Automox, a Boulder-based cloud operations vendor also heavily into the Salesforce space, laid off 18% of its employees (around 75 people) in mid-June, citing economic conditions.
Other than Gopuff’s last large reduction in July, I haven’t seen any other large tech layoffs in the Philly market. That doesn’t mean they aren’t in the process of happening; there can be a lag between the time layoffs happen and the time that news about them seeps out. But sometimes when an emerging startup cuts two or three engineers, it can be a big deal to that company though you may not hear about it.
In a different category, eCommerce, Shopify conceded that it had bet too much on continuing pandemic-fueled growth and was planning to cut up to 10%, or 1,000 employees.
Two of my best sources on the Philly Tech job market are very positive:
Mark Constan
1w
For those who have been #laidoff The July #Jobs Report was released and the US added 528,000 jobs. Unemployment even dipped to 3.5%, which is the lowest it’s been in 50 years. Hold you head up! Enjoy this weekend. Enjoy the time off you have this summer! You will have something soon.
https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:share:6961325982012030977
1w
Trying to be positive.
Many layoffs are happening, and employees and candidates need to do some homwework in financials and product.
T. Brad Kielinski• 1stFounder & CEO at IT Pros1mo • 1 month ago
If there were ever a time to be laid off, now is the time.
Tech unemployment is 2.1%
The hiring market is booming for skilled and accomplished professionals.
There are 348,000+ “Software Engineer” jobs advertised on this platform alone.
Although the rise in salaries have calmed down, the only real challenge becomes which offer do you take?
Good luck out there.
https://ww.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:share:6961325982012030977
Remember, though, that recruiters have a natural bias towards keeping candidates positive and active.
Let me know of any layoff news at [email protected]
Update 8/27:FreshDirect shut down its Philly operations after 12 years. eliminating 40 jobs in the process.
Update 8/31: Things are fairly quiet, though its difficult to ascertain whats going on behind the scenes. Wondering if Comcast will be cutting workforce, given slowing growth.
Update 9/1: Two WARN Notices:
Conduit Global Inc.
3400 Bath Pike
Bethlehem, PA 18017
175 people affected
DHL Supply Chain
120 Commerce Lane
Tatamy, PA 18085
58 Affected