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Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

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Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#21
Australia has been fine. Amongst the big software engineering hirers (Google, Atlassian, Canva, big banks, WiseTech, AWS) only Google Sydney is known to be doing layoffs.

Zendesk (Melbourne) did layoffs last year, but this was small scale I think, and mostly driven by their company-specific troubles.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#22
Lithuania. There were at least 3 companies last year who reduced their IT workforce: Interactio, HCL Technologies Lithuania and Genius Sports. As well last year Uber announced that they will close Lithuanian office but people can relocate (I know people who chose to move to different companies in Lithuania). This year I heard only about TrustPilot firing someone (or everyone).

It looks like companies choose not increasing salary path nowadays. That means the only way is to switch jobs to get salary increase and I know several people who did that recently. Company I work at is looking for front end developers as well. I have direct invite to some companies and I know that in case I lose my job I will get new one next day. LinkedIn spam reduced from 2 offers per day to 2 per week but I still get them.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#23
it should only affect USA. most companies depend on investor money (some to live, like tsla, uber. some because of bonuses tied to stock prices)

those companies know that investor money is directly related to FED rate. if its zero, they get invested, if its high, people will put money to work elsewhere.

they only lever they have to control fed rate is unemployment. they know they are hurting their business by laying off people they fought to acquire, but their incentives for investor money is higher than anything else.

so their plan is to increase unemployment in the USA so fed lower rates so investment money keeps flowing.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#25
- US companies are less likely to offer 15K/month, whereas before it wasn't uncommon

- Local Latam companies are having an easier time retaining talent

- Devs in Latam have lowered their salary expectations and often are putting regular salary increases on pause

- There's less job hopping between firms now

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#26
That's so weird that layoffs have primarily been in the US, the most expensive labor market. It's almost like the layoffs aren't really out of any necessity in most cases but are just an attack on labor and labor costs.

That aside, it is worth noting that a lot of other countries make it a lot more difficult to lay people off and when you do there are more protections, greater notice periods and so on. So it may just be that layoffs are happening overseas and we haven't really heard about them yet.

Also, most non-US offices of big tech companies tend to e a lot smaller. London is a bit of an outlier.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#27
Brazilian here: for laid off in November by an UK based startup and still unemployed.

Local companies seemly are willing to hire but because the flood of fired workers they are offering really bad wages. I got offered work as embedded C dev for 300 USD month... I didn't accept back then because I was still working in my old job. I regret not taking that job now. 300 USD at least is more than 0 USD.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#28

- US companies are less likely to offer 15K/month, whereas before it wasn't uncommon - Local Latam companies are having an easier time retaining talent - Devs in Latam have lowered their salary expectations and often are putting regular salary increases on pause - There's less job hopping between firms now

How common are/were 15K/month salaries in Latam? That's a good money (180K/year) even by US standards, not mentioning other parts of the world.

Re: Ask HN: How are the current layoffs affecting non-US developers?

#29
post #18

In New Zealand - most layoffs I’ve heard about have been US companies trimming offshore staff. At least one high profile local startup has laid people off though. Speaking as a hiring manager it’s definitely been easier to find people since around mid 2022

It will be interesting to see what happens as a result of the flooding. I imagine New Zealand's economy is going to take an extra hit with that.

Boom times for anyone in road building and construction, probably. It's been described as a billion dollar weather event on par with the Christchurch earthquake 10+ years ago.
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