Goodbye to big tech’s big perks? S’pore workers say global techlash has come for their benefits

SINGAPORE – Big tech companies once represented the best of both worlds in corporate life – the boundless optimism of working in a field with seemingly endless growth, and great work-life balance padded with lavish perks and luxurious offices.

Eleven current and former Singapore-based employees at Apple, ByteDance, Microsoft, Google and Meta, who spoke to The Straits Times on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the press, shared a common lament: The golden era of big tech perks and benefits may be coming to a close – and their firms now increasingly resemble the established corporate outfits they once sought to differentiate from.

He adds: “Every tech company is doing layoffs, so the tech sector is definitely not as safe as it used to be, but it’s not so much the layoffs that changed how I look at the industry – it’s supply and demand.”

“With thousands of fresh grads being pumped out every year, I don’t think the demand will catch up to what it was,” Thomas says. “But the benefits, even though they are maybe 60 per cent of what they used to be, are still best in class.”

“It’s definitely getting worse. Everyone is in survival mode, and money is being spent on artificial intelligence data centres, not people,” says the former tech worker, who is in his early 40s.

“During the pandemic, we expanded like crazy. I don’t think the expansion was thought through, and that was the crux of the problem,” she adds. She says that following the layoffs, there was a rise in office politics and bitter infighting over overlapping responsibilities among teams.

“The story to me isn’t about benefit packages, but about middle management and why these systems failed.”

What mattered most were bigger-ticket items like changes in insurance providers, annual pay increments being decreased or eliminated, or promotion being curtailed – a sentiment echoed by other workers who spoke to ST.

Still, he acknowledges that compensation and benefits in the sector remain well ahead of others. “It’s only because things used to be much better that people are having a tough time reconciling and accepting that the good times are over,” he says.

Unlike earlier years of double-digit growth, big tech firms now operate in a more hostile regulatory and public environment. The backlash against the biggest tech companies has reached such heights that a new term has risen to describe it: techlash.

He also expresses concern about the rise of protectionism in the US and its impact on his former company’s culture. “A lot of strategic roles and higher-level roles were stripped away and pushed back to the US, and roles in Apac are diminished in agency,” he says.

continue reading the ultra-long article here...
https://www.straitstimes.com/life/goodbye-t...-their-benefits

This post has been edited by ipohps3: Nov 17 2024, 01:13 AM

how about new gen/fresh grads?

why so fast tutup

what is the effects on business in SG?

then habislah SG?

agree with this observation, overall the tech companies are on cost saving mode. very prudent on how they spend now, no more pandemic driven splurge.

now with Trump back to White House, not sure if it will create more uncertainties and how this will affect tech jobs.

so your friend kena retrenched?

remotely, or the company move out from SG?