Is this the end of the bubble? Experts: Technical jobs will see a slowdown in wages | Work and career

“It was Friday morning, I woke up and couldn’t access Slack (the messaging app) and company email. I logged into WhatsApp and our other colleagues sent messages saying goodbye because they’d been fired. And when I finally got access,” says developer Rhamses Soares, 34 General, I see that I am also part of the cut.”

With 16 years of experience, he underwent a massive layoff at a tech startup last February.

Just over a month later, the Rhamses were able to move on, but with a 20% lower salary — a fact that should become more common in the tech market, according to experts.

a g 1 Speak to industry professionals and recruiters to find out about future prospects for the coming months. They highlighted the following:

Ramses worked for more than four years on the technology team at a health insurance company.

In October last year, he received an offer to also work as a developer in a startup insurance company. While browsing the “boom” in technology, where vacancies and good salaries were plentiful, he decided to embark on a new journey.

But the exchange did not end well. Less than five months later, in February, he was fired when the company laid off a significant portion of its staff.

“I got fired two months after they said they weren’t going to fire anyone,” Ramesses says. “The justification is that they miscalculated, that they thought it was going to be tough, but the truth is, it was a lot worse than they imagined. Basically, the last 20 or so people on the staff were fired.”

The developer has struggled to find a job that pays well and allows the flexibility of working from home. He had to connect to his entire network for about a month and a half before he had the chance.

With this experience, I realize that The salary he received at startup was much higher than what the national market currently offersregardless of the contraction model.

At the end of March, he was hired by another health plan operator, along with A.J Lower salary and as a PJFor the first time in more than five years, he no longer had an official contract.

According to platform Layoffs Brasil, in the first three months of this year alone, more than 30 tech companies made cuts.

Lockdowns are linked to a structural change, explains Lina Nakata, a professor at the FIA ​​Business School and FEEx researcher.

claim that, Until recently, there were few tech professionalswhile The demand for labor in firms continued to grow.

that It led companies to hire employees with a much higher salary than what is common in the market, with the aim of attracting and retaining talent.

Now reality begins to change. Vinicius Mesel, 23, has been working as a programmer for more than six years and says corporate cuts have directly affected wages in this sector.

With all the layoffs, the supply of qualified labor has grown in the market Hence, companies already You no longer need to offer such high salaries.

Vivian, from Robert Half, shares the view that the values ​​offered to IT professionals must be subject to stability.

Median salaries for tech professionals have been slowing, Robert Half Salary’s survey suggests.

The starting salary for a Senior Backend Developer (Rhamses case) was, on average, R$8,600 in 2021, rising to R$10,750 in 2022 – An increase of R$2,150 from year to year.

Now, in 2023, the average salary starts at R$12,250 – An increase of R$1,500 over the previous year. any, From 2022 to 2023 the jump was 30% smaller than from 2021 to 2022.

The same situation is observed in the salaries of other positions, such as Systems Analyst, Agile Trainer, DevOps Analyst, Big Data Analyst, BI Manager, Mobile Developer, Full Stack Developer, Front End Developer, for example.

However, some areas in technology still hold the fattest peaksbearing in mind that these are the sectors with increasing demand within companies. It is about information security (Read more on the topic below).

“Although the demand for technology will always be high (which should continue to create jobs), wages will adjust to the new realities of the world and will have to go down,” highlights the CEO of a company focused on passenger technology that he doesn’t want to define.

He says that after mass layoffs recently, his company has begun to invest only what is necessary in technology.

Before the crisis, he said that “everything was automated,” but now this investment is made only in areas that will generate a good return for the company, thus reducing the need for many professionals in this sector.

According to the hiring director for IT Robert Half, despite the wave of mass layoffs, the market should continue to provide vacancies for technology professionals.

The expert also points out that in this year, the Recruitment should focus mainly on workers with a lower professional level – that is, with less experience.

Precisely because they have less experience, salaries for these professionals may be lower than those for veterans.

in the development areafor example, it is already possible to notice this trend. Among senior positions or higher, the starting salary was, on average, R$8,900 in 2021 and R$11,125 in 2022an increase of R$2,225.

From last year to this year there was also an increase but less: The average starting salary is R$12,250.

On the other side, Among entry-level positions, the increment values ​​remained practically stable, around R$1,000, as described in the salary guide. In 2021, the average starting salary is R$4,000; In 2022, at R$5,175. This year, it started at R$6,175.

On the contrary, explains Vivian, there is a segment within tech that should continue to hire high wages: Information Security.

The growing demand for information security professionals can be explained because companies, from all sectors, need greater protection in their operations involving technology.

Salaries in this region, according to Robert Half’s survey, also indicate that it is hot. The average value of security analysts is R$8,400. A year ago, the figure was R$6,900, and in 2021, the figure is R$6,150.

The highest value recorded by the salary guide among jobs in the region is R$23,750 for Information Security Coordinator – an increase of R$3,550 compared to 2022 and R$5,650 compared to 2021, as the average salaries for such a position were R$20,200 and R$18,100, respectively.

Collaborator: Darlan Helder