The Thing About Design Layoffs…
Despite signs of economic recovery and predictions of avoiding a recession, tech companies continue to lay off employees, specifically product managers, designers and software engineers.
From big design houses laying off employees to a decline in the number of open job postings for design roles, last year has been a weird one and it feels like we are still in the thick of it. Here are 3 stories that paint the not-so-positive picture if you are a designer.
1. Layoffs at Design Powerhouses
Industry leaders and pioneers of design thinking, IDEO announced they are laying off 32% of their staff by the end of this year. This would also mean some of their offices completely shutting down. While mainstream media would use this opportunity to mark the beginning of a slow death for design thinking, I don’t think that is what this means. I particularly resonated with Stephen Gates’ (Ex-Head of Design at Invision) take on this :
“I think the impact of Design is still as strong as ever, but it is going to look different, and innovation will come more from sources outside most companies because of the reduced role of design.”
IDEO is not the only design led company that is laying off it’s employees.
Recently, Nike went through a change in it’s design leadership and parallelly laid off product managers and 70+ creative contractors.
2. Product Managers Taking a Hit
Product managers getting cut seems to be on trend this year (unfortunately). Earlier this month, Snap laid off 20 product managers. (Interestingly, at the time of writing this, they are also hiring PMs). Earlier this year, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shared that they completely got rid of the product management function at Airbnb and now supposedly the product designers have full control over the creative experience. This announcement was followed by a round of lay-offs spread across the company.
3. Design Jobs on the decline
The third story comes from Indeed, the job posting company. Their research suggests that hiring softened for both UX research and design in the latter half of 2022, along with declines in the tech job market as a whole. The number of open roles has decreased even further since the start of this year. Since their peak in early 2022, UX research job listings have dropped 71% and UX design job listings dipped 70%.
Where are we headed?
To be completely clear, the design industry is not in a recession and this is not the end of the world for us. This is simply an adjustment of headcount (majorly in tech) due to the effects of over-hiring post COVID. (See the spike during early 2022 above). That being said, if the trend continues, UX and product specialists may find it hard to communicate their value in an economic situation riddled with AI and remote work expectations. Wall Street Journal reported a recent decline in starting salaries within the United States, revealing a drop of 18% for developers and engineers, and an 11% decline for UX professionals, when compared to late 2022.
Here’s my take:
Design, historically perceived as a glamorous and innovative field, has often grappled with a branding dilemma. Celebrated for its ‘newness’ and its fusion of emotion, psychology, and creativity, design stands in stark contrast to a world that predominantly values and rewards logical, linear thinking. As Steve Jobs famously said, ‘Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.’ By repositioning design as a discipline that is nimble and universally accessible, we can potentially break away from the exclusive domain of elite design houses. Such a transformation paves the way for smaller, more specialized teams, and creates a fertile future for design-led entrepreneurship. I’m already seeing the birth of a lot of new small focused design teams, are you?