As a new year fast approaches, much of the chaos and dust kicked up by the Covid-19 Pandemic is still shifting before settling.
The once-consistent work environment is now a spectrum from all-office to all-remote across companies, impacting corporate culture and leaving entire downtown cores in a state of a flux.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
A Shifting Market
In this new market, tech talent is considered to be in the driver’s seat but many still face fear of layoffs, the numbers of which spiked this year throughout Canada’s tech sector and beyond due to a post-Pandemic global downturn.
In 2022, a total of 150,000 tech workers have been laid off globally across more than 900 companies, according to data from aggregator Layoffs.fyi.
However, these so-called “headwinds” are not expected to be permanent or lethal, at least locally.
While job postings may be down in relative terms, Canada’s tech hubs have seen record growth—most are more concerned about not having enough talent.
More good news: Tech specifically is expected to be more resilient than other sectors moving forward.
For example, CBRE believes the tech sector may continue to outperform other sectors regardless of market challenges.
“Tech industry job growth remains well above the national average,” a report from the firm stated recently. “Economic headwinds in the year ahead likely will slow but not end high-tech job growth.”
Several companies of different sizes and sectors continue to expand their footprint within Canada, suggesting confidence in the country’s stability.
A recent example of this is Amazon, whose two growing tech hubs (in Vancouver and Toronto) employ a combined 9,000 Canadians and counting.
Perpetual Tech Growth
As humanity increasingly immerses itself deeper into a technology-based society, and new advances continue on the regular, we can expect growth in the sector.
“Tech is a constantly evolving industry,” says Derek Darch, who serves as senior director of employer engagement for NPower Canada, which provide participants with digital skills training.
If talent is willing to adapt to changing environments via methods such as up-skilling, tech will always boast opportunity—even in a bear market.
According to Darch, innovations will develop more sophisticated technology and “we may see that certain technological jobs may no longer be relevant”—it has certainly happened before. But it is all part of a process.
Obsolete positions “will be replaced by roles that support the technologies of the future,” he points out.
And how could there not always be technologies of the future? It is in our very DNA to pursue such endeavours.
“We are constantly exploring the ways that tech can integrate, innovate, and improve life,” Darch says.
And it is this exploration which has created organizations and industries that didn’t exist a few years ago, he notes—a beautiful cycle of the tech sector we anticipate to keep on spinning.
