Fired tech workers are career pivots
Austin tech giants are cutting jobs, but ex-employees take the ‘good’ with the ‘bad’.
AUSTIN, Texas — Earlier this week, Austin-based Indeed announced it would be downsizing and laying off 15% of its workforce. Other tech giants like Google, Meta and Amazon have also laid off employees.
Briana Troisi was one of the workers laid off at Amazon. Troisi was working on her “dream job” on Amazon’s learning and development team when she received a fateful email in January telling her she was one of thousands who would be cut from the organization.
“It was certainly a very disheartening and devastating, devastating day for me, and I’ve definitely been in denial,” Troisi said.
Benjamin Howard faced a similar situation that same month. Howard was working in user experience at Google when he received the email that he was being fired.
“Just letting something like that happen is a life-changing experience. That’s the first thing that came to mind,” Howard said.
Fortunately, the state of Texas still sees a strong job market for those beginning a career. While Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) announced that the unemployment rate rose to 4%, the economy added 611,400 new jobs last year.
Last month, Texas added 58,200 jobs and the civilian workforce grew by 64,800. That data doesn’t reflect recent layoffs, though — those numbers won’t show up for a couple of months.
“Whenever we see a communication that someone could be laid off, we also want to put that into perspective, that we’re still seeing strong job growth in Texas, and we’re still cautiously optimistic that this will continue and are trying.” just to put that in perspective.” William Lutz, economist at TWC, said.
Troisi and Howard want to gain a new perspective during this career turnaround. Troisi has taken up dog walking rover to keep busy and have fun, while Howard has used this time to develop a dating app that aims to help eliminate dating burnout.
“Create your plan, understand what your interests are and what kind of vision you have for your career,” Howard said.
“In any case, be comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Troisi said.
https://www.kvue.com/article/tech/austin-tech-layoffs-career-pivots/269-9d3f5a1f-2e0e-4d05-b49d-0d0e085cc31b Fired tech workers are career pivots
