Dive Brief:
- Nearly 3 in 5 developers took a job recently or plan to in the coming 12 months, the latest sign of a recovering market for job seekers after broad layoffs in 2023, according to a CoderPad report released Tuesday. The company surveyed 13,000 developers and 5,500 technical recruiters for the report.
- More than two-thirds of developers say they feel more security in their roles compared to 2023. Just 1 in 5 are concerned about stability compared to last year.
- Interest in job mobility among software developers signals a clear challenge for CIOs and executives to keep employees challenged, motivated and excited about their work, CoderPad CEO Amanda Richardson said.
Dive Insight:
The first days of the new year struck a familiar note to January 2023, with hundreds of workers being laid off at several technology companies.
Xerox cut 15% of its workforce as part of a broader restructuring last week, a move that impacted roughly 3,000 workers. Videogame software maker Unity Software cut 1,800 positions Monday, and Amazon-owned Twitch announced Wednesday it would lay off 500 employees.
Thus far this year, 2,300 tech employees have been cut, according to Layoffs.fyi. Comparatively, almost 90,000 tech workers were laid off in January of last year.
"I think it's short sighted to say 'there were a lot of layoffs in 2023, there are no jobs out there, devs won't go anywhere and who cares how we treat them,'" said Richardson. "I think this data shows that's not at all true, that good people will find new jobs and they'll find new jobs that fit them."
"Thinking about your talent retention strategy will be important this year," Richardson said.
Tech employees mulling a move this year say they're mostly drawn by better advancement opportunities, higher pay or new work challenges.
Despite an uptick in December, IT unemployment trailed national averages all year in 2023, signaling a small pool of available workers in technology in relation to the amount of open jobs across industries.
Analysts expect that deficit to persist in the new year, though the onslaught of generative AI tool adoption could help lower the barrier of entry to technology roles, effectively increasing the number of potential new hires.
