When Haley Daigle was about to graduate from St. Edward’s University and continued to intern at Oracle, the company became her top choice for a job after graduation.
She succeeded and became a full-time employee at an Austin-based marketing location where she was comfortable working remotely. Then on Monday, she got a phone call saying she was part of a layoff at a giant Austin-based software company.
“I think a lot of people were blind. I don’t think the VPs even knew what was going on; Absolutely,” Daigle said. I think it’s such a crazy change that no one realizes that this many people will be laid off on Monday.
Oracle is the latest development in a recent spate of layoffs and hirings at tech companies under threat of an economic downturn. When Daigle was released, the message read: “Today is your last day. Your position has been removed due to a restructuring of the marketing department.
Other tech shutdowns include the Austin presence of Tesla, which has reportedly laid off more than 200 workers. Meta has reduced its initial plan to hire 10,000 new engineers to 6,000-7,000. Google has also told employees it plans to slow its hiring pace. And Apple is expected to take similar steps, CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal that the company will hire workers in a more “intentional” way.
On the employee’s end, preparing for a recession is also top of mind. Just 9% of tech workers feel confident about their job security, according to a June survey by professional networking site Blind. For Daigle, Monday’s news quickly set her on track to land a new job.
I’m someone who likes to plan ahead and I thought being at Oracle, I’d be fine. That’s clearly not the case,” Daigle said. “So for me right now, all I want is to get a job, but as soon as possible, because if a recession is coming, I don’t want to go in with anything.”
All of this comes after Austin has raised its profile as a tech hub in recent years, and Oracle has played a role in that transformation. The company opened a 560,000-square-foot campus in Lady Bird Lake a few years before announcing it would move its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin in 2020.
But as the tech industry in Central Texas slows, workers can turn their skills to other industries. Even Daigle, who has an eye for tech jobs and was offered a position at Dell before eventually choosing Oracle, is now taking a slightly narrower approach to her job search.
She says she’s not dead on technology, even as she leaves room in the job search for other Austin-based roles.
“I know there are going to be big layoffs in the future, for every company across the board,” Daigle said. “So I think going into my job search, I’m going to focus less on the technology side and more on what really interests me.”
