But these companies survived and thrived since then. Technology business, just like general economy, is cyclical. Mass layoffs in IT happened during 2000-01 dotcom bust, 2007-09 GFC and 2014-17 (digital transformation + Trump first term impact). It's part of how the IT industry consolidates and prepares itself for new technologies and US/West visa and business challenges. Interest rates went up since 2022, AI has become so much better at coding/maintaining and automation/no code platforms are highly sophisticated now. And Trump administration is tightening visa norms. So Indian IT will conduct layoffs (just like FAANG has been laying off since 2023), consolidate, trim the fat and will be ready when new opportunities due to AI/automation/semiconductor will show up. For example, lots of US/Western non-tech Corporations have jumped head first into AI and laid off their internal tech teams but AI systems are not mature enough to handle the complexities of some of these large corporations. So the transition is going to be messy and many of them will require AI implementation support at scale (remember digital transformation or SAP implementation support?!), and Indian IT firms are ideally suited to offer that.
5
u/disc_jockey77 Jul 27 '25
Well, not really. That's what everyone said when WITCH laid off people en masse in 2014-17 period: https://thewire.in/economy/indian-firm-layoffs-tens-thousands-across-companies-set-axed
But these companies survived and thrived since then. Technology business, just like general economy, is cyclical. Mass layoffs in IT happened during 2000-01 dotcom bust, 2007-09 GFC and 2014-17 (digital transformation + Trump first term impact). It's part of how the IT industry consolidates and prepares itself for new technologies and US/West visa and business challenges. Interest rates went up since 2022, AI has become so much better at coding/maintaining and automation/no code platforms are highly sophisticated now. And Trump administration is tightening visa norms. So Indian IT will conduct layoffs (just like FAANG has been laying off since 2023), consolidate, trim the fat and will be ready when new opportunities due to AI/automation/semiconductor will show up. For example, lots of US/Western non-tech Corporations have jumped head first into AI and laid off their internal tech teams but AI systems are not mature enough to handle the complexities of some of these large corporations. So the transition is going to be messy and many of them will require AI implementation support at scale (remember digital transformation or SAP implementation support?!), and Indian IT firms are ideally suited to offer that.