A recent study co-authored by UW student affiliate Vannary Sou found that layoffs in the tech industry have caused increasing feelings of discontent among workers.

“The Cruel Optimism of Tech Work: Tech Workers’ Affective Attachments in the Aftermath of 2022-23 Tech Layoffs” was presented at CHI 2025 in Japan.

The research looked at how workers laid off on a large scale during times of profit created an environment that has many unsure about how to proceed in the industry in a positive way.

“We found workers managed their feelings of discontent through individual adjustments,” said Samuel So, a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering and lead author of the research, in an interview with UW News.

Read the full article here: https://www.geekwire.com/2025/cruel-optimism-mass-layoffs-take-the-shine-off-careers-in-the-tech-sector-uw-research-finds/

Read the research paper here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713434