S'pore tech grads in limbo amid shrinking job demand

Unexpected layoffs, hiring freeze by global tech firms force them to look for Plan B

- Sherlyn Sim

Since he was a teenager, Mr James Looi aspired to work for a tech firm where he could create products to improve people's lives.

The 26-year-old pursued his interest in information systems at Singapore Management University, earning coveted internships at GovTech, Grab and Shopee, and also starting a product management club at university.

Five months ahead of his graduation last December, Mr Looi applied for 20 tech jobs, but heard back from only video hosting service provider TikTok. He was dropped after seven rounds of interviews which spanned three months.

Mr Looi said: "I was shocked, disappointed and helpless. I never considered the possibility I would graduate and be unable to find a job." Mr Looi is among a slew of fresh tech graduates here who are fighting for jobs in a shrinking market following a series of layoffs and hiring freezes by global tech firms with offices here in the second half of 2022.

These include e-commerce marketplace Shopee, Facebook parent Meta and social media platform Twitter.

When contacted by The Straits Times, Meta, TikTok, Shopee, Amazon and Carousell declined to comment on whether the layoffs and hiring freezes in the tech industry have affected their graduate and student internship programmes in Singapore.

The slowdown in the tech job market has surprised information and digital technology graduates, who had a 97.8 per cent overall employment rate as at November 2021.

According to the 2021 Graduate Employment Survey, these graduates also earned the highest salaries among their peers in other courses, with a gross monthly median of $5,000.

Over the last decade, good employment prospects and relatively higher starting pay in the industry saw students pursuing computer related courses.