Tech job postings plummet in Europe while surging in emerging markets

The global technology job market has undergone a dramatic realignment since late 2022, with Europe hemorrhaging positions while emerging economies in the Middle East and Asia race ahead. Data from Indeed, the world's largest job platform, tells a story of divergence: wealthy Western nations are shedding tech roles at an accelerating pace, while countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are building tech workforces at speeds not seen in developed economies for years.

The numbers are stark. By October 2025, technology job postings across Indeed had fallen below pre-pandemic levels globally—a reversal of the hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns. But the pain is not evenly distributed. Switzerland has lost 46 percent of its tech job postings since February 2020. The United Kingdom dropped 41 percent. France fell 39 percent. The United States, despite its reputation as a tech powerhouse, shed 35 percent. Even countries with smaller declines—Austria at 34 percent, Sweden at 32 percent, Germany at 30 percent—are experiencing significant contraction. Across the 27 countries Indeed tracked, the average decline in tech postings reached 18 percent.

Europe's pain has one notable exception: Spain and Luxembourg. Spain actually grew its tech job postings by 21 percent over the same period, while Luxembourg surged 37 percent. According to Brendon Bernard, a senior economist at Indeed, Spain's resilience may stem from the broader strength of its economy, which has sustained employment demand more broadly than in other advanced nations. The country's tech hiring never fully reversed its pandemic-era gains the way other European economies did.

Meanwhile, the Middle East is experiencing a technology employment explosion. Qatar leads with a 222 percent increase in tech job postings. Saudi Arabia has grown 130 percent. The United Arab Emirates has grown 111 percent. These are not marginal gains—they represent a complete transformation of labor demand in economies historically dependent on oil and finance. Bernard notes that this surge reflects something larger than tech hiring alone: it is part of a deliberate economic diversification strategy. As these nations invest in technology infrastructure and digital transformation, they are importing talent and creating new roles at a pace that dwarfs what Europe is managing.

Other emerging markets are following similar trajectories. Malaysia has grown tech postings 70 percent. Mexico 50 percent. India 44 percent. The Philippines 41 percent. When indexed against pre-pandemic levels, emerging markets as a group sit 45 percent above where they were in February 2020, even as developed economies have fallen below that baseline.

The timing matters. Bernard points to two overlapping shocks. The first was a general weakening of employer hiring appetite as macroeconomic conditions deteriorated after 2022. The second was the arrival of generative artificial intelligence, marked by ChatGPT's public release in late 2022. This second shock appears to have hit senior and specialized tech roles particularly hard in developed economies—perhaps as companies reassessed their hiring needs in light of AI capabilities, or as uncertainty about the technology's impact on employment froze decision-making.

The structural shift is becoming impossible to ignore. Between 2020 and 2022, emerging markets accounted for roughly 16 percent of global tech job postings tracked by Indeed. By September 2025, that share had nearly doubled to 28 percent. India alone represents the largest concentration of these emerging-market tech roles, reflecting both the size of its labor force and the scale of its tech industry. The geography of technology employment is being redrawn in real time, with capital and opportunity flowing toward nations that are building tech ecosystems from the ground up rather than managing mature, saturated markets.