The automotive industry is eager to hire the thousands of employees made redundant by Google, Microsoft & Co
The automotive industry is eager to hire the thousands of employees made redundant by Google, Microsoft & Co.
While tech lays off thousands of workers, automakers are desperate for highly skilled workers.
Thousands of tech workers were laid off in the first month of the year, but the financial woes of tech giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others haven’t extended to the auto industry. Solid companies like Ford and GM have yet to announce large-scale cuts like the ones that left more than 55,000 tech workers out of work this year.
Losses have been relatively small: Ford is planning 3,200 layoffs in Europe, and the closure of a Stellantis plant in February will leave 1,350 workers out of work.
But the auto industry doesn’t need to announce new cuts, because it has already done so in recent years. Automakers have spent the last three years figuring out how to approach electrification, autonomous driving and their connected car strategy, explained Richard Surridge, founder of recruiting firm AVANT Future Mobility.
We have explained the reason for such audacious corporate restructuring operations by the large tech companies several times on the pages of this site. Companies like Amazon and Google have benefited from a decade of nearly uninterrupted growth drugged by low interest rates, which has brought a constant flow of money and investment. In this period of fat cows, the big tech companies have taken over, under the illusion that growth would never stop.
So, as these companies enter a new phase and into a very different economy, the auto industry finds itself with the advantage that it has already done its homework: the hiring ramp has stopped over the last decade and all automakers have already questioned their business model several times. Companies like Ford and General Motors won’t have to lay off tens of thousands of employees, but in return they need to fill their research and development divisions, busy designing the cars of tomorrow, with thousands of new talents.
While tech lays off thousands of workers, automakers are desperate for highly skilled workers. According to cg42’s Stephen Beck, the auto industry will benefit from the wave of layoffs we’ve been seeing these days.
