Tech giants lay off workers, benefitting quantum industry
Since 2022, tech giants have set off wave after wave of layoffs, and so far, more than 1,000 different companies have fired over 200,000 tech professionals in 2022 and 2023, according to tech industry layoff tracking site Layoffs.fyi [1]. Some of the more notable layoffs, in approximate numbers, are as follows.
But this wave of layoffs is surprisingly favorable to the quantum industry? What's going on is that the CEO of a major quantum company stated [2] that it is currently far more difficult to recruit qualified classical engineers than quantum experts: quantum computers use a staggering amount of classical hardware, specifically classical control electronics for controlling quantum bits, creating graphical user interfaces, database engineering, integrating quantum computers with classical processors for hybrid computing, job queuing algorithms, data analysis, and more.
He suggests that for those quantum companies that are desperate for talent, it is perfectly acceptable to consider hiring people with experience in classical computing. Not only will you find these people more productive in your company than you might think, but they can also use their experience working for traditional computing companies to take on and come up with creative solutions to technical problems that arise in your company. These employees leaving large technology companies are exactly the kind of people the quantum industry desperately needs.
Currently, quantum-related jobs do not require very specialized pure quantum skills
Back in 2022, QED-C reported data from a survey of the quantum industry [3]. Analysis of data from 57 quantum industry companies showed that there are many different types of quantum-related jobs available today, and the broad distribution of job types is not predicted to shrink in the near future. This alleviates the concern that the nature of job roles will change dramatically, and with it the required educational track.
The number of companies (orange) out of 57 that indicated they will be hiring for a certain job type (y-axis) in the next two years (blue) or in the next 3-5 years.
The number of important quantum (blue) and non-quantum (orange) skills needed for each job type; not all job types in the quantum workforce require important quantum-specific skills.
Second, the number and type of important skills and knowledge also varies greatly between job roles. Many of these important skills are non-quantum skills. This result is critical for all stakeholders: quantum-related jobs do not currently require very specialized pure quantum skills.
Important skills and important degrees for different job roles. Quantitative skills are shown in bold. Importance is defined by consensus, i.e. an important skill/degree is indicated by more than 50% of the respondents as the primary skill/degree for the job.
[3]https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9733176
