Evolving Workplaces

Scoring Tech Talent 2023

Slowdown in Tech Company Hiring Creates Talent Opportunities for Other Industries

July 17, 2023 40 Minute Read

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Recent tech company layoffs have created opportunities for other industries to hire much-needed tech talent.

Overall tech talent employment grew by 11% between 2020 and 2022, with tech companies adding nearly 2.5 times more tech workers than the next highest industry sector, professional services. Software developers and programmers across all industries accounted for 60% of the new tech talent employment. But as the economy slowed in the second half of 2022, tech companies began laying off employees, many of whom were in non-tech roles like sales and marketing.

Since 2022, the tech industry, which employs 41% of all U.S. tech talent, has accounted for 30% of the 700,000 workforce layoffs globally by U.S.-based employers, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Of this total, approximately 25% were tech talent; the remaining 75% were in non-tech roles, according to CBRE’s analysis of layoffs.fyi data. Tech talent employed by non-tech employers, which represent 59% of U.S. tech talent, did not announce major layoffs.

In addition to these layoffs, tech job postings declined from a peak of 900,000 in mid-2022 to 450,000 by early 2023, based on CBRE’s analysis of Lightcast data (Figure 1).

Figure 1: U.S. Tech Job Postings & Remote Share

Source: CBRE Research and Lightcast, May 2023.

Insights from the Scoring Tech Talent Roundtable Event

CBRE subject matter experts discuss key findings from the report plus topics including labor market trends that are impacting real estate strategies, the top markets as well as up-and-coming ones, workforce demographics and more.

Remote working trends have allowed tech talent employers to diversify their workforce both geographically and demographically. Job postings for remote tech talent grew to 20% of the 593,000 total tech job postings in May 2023, on par with the share of remote postings in mid-2022.

Working from home more than in the office remains the tech industry standard (Appendix Table 1). In 2021, 46% of tech talent across all industries and 44% of tech industry workers across all occupations worked from home. The number of people of working from home since 2021 has declined and likely will continue to do so as employers require more in-office work. Building security company Kastle Systems' 10-city “back-to-work barometer” of office occupancy levels increased by 12 percentage points between 2021 and 2022.

Tech talent remains in high demand despite economic uncertainty and employment reductions. Remote and hybrid work will benefit tech talent employers and challenge some office markets with reduced demand, which is why our annual cost analysis cut the amount of office space needed per employee.