Retrenched India Meta engineer: "If I went back home, it would be difficult for me to get back to Singapore"

[The_King]

Where are SEA’s laid-off techies headed?

“I wasn’t able to travel back to India to be there for the birth of my second daughter in December. I was laid off a month before her birth,” says Gautham AV, an engineer and former employee of Meta in Singapore.

“If I went back home, it would be difficult for me to get back to Singapore as I would have to reapply for a visa without a job in hand,” he adds.

Gautham is one of 11,000 staff affected by the retrenchment at the social media titan, which took place in November 2022.

For expats who were laid off, Meta had sponsored their visa for 90 days after the termination of their contracts. Now, Gautham has just one month to find a new job in Singapore. This has left him worried as time ticks away.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Across Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia, many like him have been left stranded in the wake of Meta’s decision. Tech in Asia browsed through the list of employees axed from the tech giant and found that nearly 80% of them haven’t been placed yet, if their LinkedIn profiles are an indication.

This seems to be the case with retrenched staff at Twitter, Shopee, Carousell, Zenius, and other tech firms across Southeast Asia. These employees include engineers, programmers, and developers – currently considered the most sought-after talent among companies.

But despite the slew of job cuts, Peter Bithos, CEO of Seek Asia, offers another perspective. “All these layoffs are a slight dent in the demand for tech talent in the region,” he told Tech in Asia in a recent interview.

This was echoed by other talent recruiters and HR experts in Southeast Asia that Tech in Asia spoke to.

According to Bithos, demand for tech roles on Seek’s platforms – JobStreet and JobsDB – is up 180% in Singapore from 2020 and has risen 75% in Indonesia during the same period.

“In fact, when we look at the whole of 2022 cumulatively, the number of job ads for tech roles in Singapore has not only increased significantly, but it has also outpaced the growth of the total job ads in the country,” Bithos points out.

So who are offering jobs for tech talent and where are these laid-off employees getting hired?

Conglomerates as safety nets

Most of the retrenched are being absorbed by up-and-coming tech startups, recruiters say. But this doesn’t necessarily mean the newfound jobs at these startups offer a sense of security. On the contrary, the trauma of being laid off and the knowledge that it could happen again can make people think twice about a career at startups.

For instance, a former employee of Zenius told Tech in Asia on condition of anonymity that she knows colleagues who went through two consecutive layoffs in 2022 while they worked at two different tech startups. As a result, they have decided not to seek employment at a startup again, says the source, who was laid off from the Indonesian edtech firm last year.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Given these factors, some end up working for conglomerates and non-tech companies.

“People who have been laid off by a bigger tech company are joining early-stage startups that are still probably growing, thanks to the recent funding they received,” says Antonio Mazza, co-founder of WeNetwork, a recruitment firm based in Indonesia. However, he sees a newer trend of candidates joining major conglomerates as they appear to provide more job security.

According to Mazza, the mindset of candidates has shifted from two years ago, when a software engineer, for example, would have wanted to work in a few tech startups in their growth stage. Nowadays, there is a renewed interest in joining more established businesses.

“This is something that we can testify to based on the fact that we are not only recruiting for tech startups, but we also recruit for the so-called conventional conglomerates, who are trying to attract those talents,” he says.

Nurul Ramadani Nasution, assistant head of the tech division at recruitment firm Monroe Consulting Group, seconds this observation. She tells Tech in Asia that candidates are joining non-tech companies focused on digitalizing themselves in sectors including retail, logistics, and financial services.

Tech in Asia has also observed that many retrenched employees who have already landed a job are now working at other tech startups. A few have secured positions at non-tech firms such as banks and advertising firms; one even got a job at a Singapore government agency.

Many software engineers are moving to digibanks that will be launched this year or those “currently building their own team,” Nasution notes. “Digibanks in Indonesia have taken a lot of these talents. Other than that, I think the fintech firms have attracted some of the talent,” she says.

While some experts estimate that about 60% of staff axed by tech companies have been absorbed, one recruiter put the figure at 80%. Though it is hard to give exact numbers, one recruiter said they have even seen some tech talents sitting on multiple offers to weigh which is the best career move.

Not only are the salary asks still unreasonable, but they don’t add up in the P&L.

“In Singapore, there is still a higher number of jobs available per talent. There are over two job openings being advertised for one unemployed person. However, in Indonesia the ratio is not there yet,” shares Mazza.

That said, most experts agree that candidates should be able to get an offer within a few weeks of their search.

Ground realities differ, however. The ex-Zenius employee mentioned earlier says that for many of her former colleagues, it took months to secure a job. Some of her friends who were sacked in the first wave of layoffs that hit Indonesian tech firms in mid-2022 have only recently found new employment. Others in the second wave, which happened towards the end of last year, are also still finding it difficult to get another post.

Still a tough job market

If there are more openings than candidates, then why are they still struggling to find a job?

Experts believe that salary expectations on both sides are a factor. For instance, some candidates who were let go from major startups expect a huge salary increment from their next employer. On the other hand, companies are looking to spend more efficiently amid the current macroeconomic conditions.

For years, tech startups gave bigger salaries than non-tech firms to attract the best talent. In Singapore, tech companies pay about 12% higher than non-tech sectors for similar tech roles, according to a recent Seek Asia report.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Jitendra Gupta, founder and CEO of fintech firm Jupiter, recently tweeted that while layoffs are all over the news, not only are the salary asks are “still unreasonable,” but they also “don’t add up in the P&L (profit and loss statement).”

“Due to the differences in compensation package, it could still be a challenge for non-tech companies to hire top talent from the tech sectors,” Seek Asia’s Bithos shares. Those who were sacked or who are looking to move for job security “may need to adjust their salary expectations accordingly and be willing to make certain trade-offs,” the CEO says.

Many companies also want to hire laid-off employees at a salary lower or equal to what they were drawing at their old employer, says the former Zenius staff. The salary offer for her post-layoff job was the same as her previous pay, but she accepted it because she needed a steady source of income – much like what has happened in the case of her ex-colleagues.

Job security is even prioritized over salary considerations, as candidates today inquire about the financial health of the company before considering a potential job.

In some cases, local candidates – citizens or permanent residents – are preferred over expats as companies don’t have to sponsor their visa costs. But if the position requires expertise that firms can’t find locally, then they would go for a candidate outside the country, says Nasution from Monroe Consulting Group.

She explains that as companies focus on cost efficiency, they want to hire “someone who can wear multiple hats.” Previously, a company would hire two mobile developers – one for Android and another for iOS – but now they look for candidates with experience in both ecosystems. Being skilled at different coding languages is preferred as well.

Junior-level employees and those who work on particular stacks or processes may also find it difficult to land their next job easily, Nasution adds.

This is because larger organizations are often structured in such a way that employees work in silos and only gain experience in handling a small part of the overall product development process. Shifting teams is also usually difficult for employees in big firms, so they don’t get opportunities to wear multiple hats.

According to Gautham, the former Meta engineer, many of the companies he has interviewed with are seeking candidates who meet 100% of the job description. In many cases, he estimates that he met 80% of the requirements, but it wasn’t enough. “Many of them also wanted engineers experienced in developing cloud tech stacks, and I don’t have that,” he says.

Talent slipping away from startups

It’s not only companies that have been picky.

“For many candidates, it’s no longer about working for companies that offer cool perks,” says Bithos of Seek Asia. Nowadays, they are more concerned about long-term career stability instead of taking a risk by “joining a firm for two to three years and exiting.”

Image credit: Timmy Loen

This is understandable since being laid off is a traumatic experience even when there’s decent compensation and financial security.

“I was interviewing someone to join Seek, and I had the interviewee ask me: ‘Will my job be secure?’” Bithos shares. “I’ve never gotten that question since I joined Seek two years ago, which is a really good indication that there’s much more focus on being wary of the company and whether it’s in a good position.”

Job security is even prioritized over salary considerations, says Nasution, as candidates today inquire about the financial health of the company before considering a potential job.

If this is the case, then it could mean tech startups are losing out on valuable talent. And while it is becoming harder for companies to hire right now, Bithos believes that being clear on their value proposition could help them convince candidates to come work for them.

 

 

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[Huat Zai]

 

 

[Coffee_O]

if you are truly a talent and eh gan, why worry about going back rapeland and unable to come back leh? just apply for our beloved local bank lah, they would love you to join their village LOL