Back in 2019 the IMF stated in a report that the demand for tech talent outstrips supply by a significant magnitude, hence the “limited pool” branding and they anticipate this trend will continue. That shortage is to become more acute as companies race to digitize, wide spread growth in fintech and AI.
Then came Covid-19…! That changed everything including the outlook of how people work, remote working became more acceptable and the norm in some cases, nomad working became a “thing” and even some countries legitimised it by coming up with visas with that name…
Workers in general, in and out of the tech field, started to look at the “quality of life” aspects of their employment and started making changes. Hybrid working and other models started to pop-up and be adopted to retain existing staff or entice new talent in addition to rising salaries.
Companies also started to look further afield than their home-base countries for tech skills, making development outsourcing more enticing as a business model whether it is off-short or talent relocation or a combination of the two. Even governments got on to the bandwagon with tax incentives for companies to relocate or open a presence in their jurisdiction.
Then came inflation and recession in mid-2022 and in parallel leading tech companies (Google, Stripe etc) were cutting head count to realign with the markets and revaluated sales forecasts.
In our opinion the demand has paused in January 2021 to reflect on the new year strategy and will refine the skill requirements to be more focused (Backend developers and Data Scientists who are the backbone of AI progress) with cost optimization always in the background.
All this makes it difficult to predict what the “future of work” would look like as we have not had a period of stability to plot a medium to long term trajectory of the concept.
I think the priority for most companies that have a strong tech contingent will be to create calm, stability and an acutely focused strategy for 2023 with product/service top-down alignment against the tech & sales requirement closely linked.
Flexibility to scale up or down as needed is the name of the game, and hence my view of constant flux in the tech talent market, therefore the labour market (buy and sell side) will have to be ready to constantly shift.