(KRON) – It seems like every other day, another technology company announces a series of layoffs. The situation has been going on for more than a year, fueling images of doom and gloom, but prominent Bay Area CEOs say AI is fueling the boom, and analysts agree.
Since the beginning of 2024, layoffs have been announced at Cisco, PayPal, eBay, Google, and Salesforce, showing that last year's hundreds of thousands of technology job cuts are far from over. But on Monday, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said on social media, “San Francisco is once again experiencing a tech resurgence. Entrepreneurs and investors are returning to the city where the artificial intelligence boom is taking place.”
“What Benioff is saying is absolutely true,” said technology analyst Tim Bajarin. “What we are seeing now is an incredible demand for new engineering talent and jobs, especially for engineers and programmers who understand how to work within artificial intelligence.
Bajarin has been covering the industry for 45 years. He said the layoffs seen so far were a result of inflation concerns and overhiring to meet demand in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
And while layoffs may continue until the middle of this year, he says the future of technology in the Bay Area is bright.
“We're on the verge of a whole new level of energy, especially not just artificial intelligence… Apple just announced a new product called Vision Pro. This is a potential future of computing that moves from 2D to virtual 3D immersive technology. ,” he said.
Bajarin said boom-and-bust scenarios are common as technology changes from one phase to another, from PCs to social media to smartphones to AI. But he expects to see more hiring over the next five years than in the past.
“Literally every enterprise account and large enterprise that I talk to is trying to figure out how to integrate AI into the next generation of business processes. “I think there will be a lot of interest in hiring engineering talent and marketing talent who understand how to use artificial intelligence. They have skills that are relevant to any company,” he said. I did.
