Layoff in times of technological pandemic. Which jobs are most affected?

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the term "layoff" started to be very popular around the world. According to data from the platform that tracks the technological startups that opted for this measure, Layoffs.fyi, have already been put on layoff since March 11, close to 35,000 employees. According to a sample of cases, this option mainly affects professionals working in the sales area, but engineers are also not immune to the "freezing" of jobs with reduced pay.

Based on an analysis of 17 lists with 2,485 employees that were put on layoff between March 11 and April 30, the website shows that sales professionals are the most affected, corresponding to 29.95% of the total, followed by those from the area customer success. The engineers are still in the top 3, with 13.7% of professionals seeing their employment affected.

Layoffs in technological startups between March 3 and April 30, 2020 Source: TechCrunch

Among some of the technological companies that have already put workers on layoff are Trip Adivsor, with the CEO announcing measures that will affect more than 900 employees. Not confirmed yet is Uber's decision to lay 20% of its workers on layoff, news reported by The Information website last week.

In an interview with SAPO TeK, Frederico Rocha, partner of EDC, and Alexandre Silveira, marketing manager at HP, addressed the question of trust in times of pandemic in the world of technological companies. Both experts confirm that organizations will naturally feel the impact of COVID-19, after a study revealed that technology remains the sector with the highest level of confidence, standing at around 75%.

How is COVID-19 affecting Portuguese technologies?

On the Teamlyzer platform dedicated to the pandemic, it is possible to verify the impact that COVID-19 is having on the country's technologies, with reports of layoffs, layoffs or the option for teleworking. However, there are also those who are hiring, such as Vestas, in Porto.

In the case of Unbabel, recently elected as one of the most innovative companies in the world, there are records of redundancies. "Some of the dismissed people have already started leaving Unbabel this week," it can be read, referring to cases two weeks ago. In the list that assesses the impact of the pandemic on Portuguese companies, there are also names such as Talkdesk, 360 imprint and aMicrosoft Portugal.

As Social Security explains, the layoff consists of the temporary reduction of normal working periods or the suspension of employment contracts at the initiative of companies, for a certain time. Some of the plausible reasons for this to happen are precisely "catastrophes" or "occurrences" that have seriously affected the normal activity of the company.

Editorial note: News updated with more information on the platform that is gathering data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on April 5, at 9:52 am