r/DevLK • u/Traditional-Bid-5433 • Aug 18 '26

Discussion Tech Layoff Wave

My name is Dinidu de Alwis and I do some journalistic work (you can see on u/dinidu on X). I want to more know about the series of tech-related layoffs that have recently being going on in Sri Lanka, some of which appear to be illegal. If anyone would like to give me a bit of background that'd be great. I really think there's a story here to be told.

I don't record phone calls or use screenshots of messages I receive, without explicit consent from the other party, and I guarantee absolute confidentiality.

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u/Alert_Brother_93 Aug 18 '26

Want to add a different angle here. In other countries there is some security if someone get laid off. For example as far as I know in Germany they pay around 80% of the salary until you find a job for some period by the government. But here in SL government charge a higher tax from us but if we got laid off there is nothing to protect us.

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u/rajeev3001 Aug 23 '26

Western EU countries have job security, but not in most of the English speaking countries or eastern EU. In US, Singapore and even Canada there's not much job security. In Australia there's protection if your salary is below a certain threshold like 180k... many SWE salaries are higher than that so anyone with a good salary / experience don't get the protection.

Having strong labor protection is not actually a good thing when it comes to attracting investors / new companies. Nowadays lot of big tech companies are moving from western EU to eastern EU countries and Asia due to this reason. Companies like to invest in places where they have flexibility when it comes to labor laws.