Lay-offs in the tech sector are coming thick and fast. In May, Meta announced 350 job losses in Dublin, with a further 720 jobs at risk at its contractor Covalen Solutions – 500 of these in AI annotation. TikTok has now formally offered 300 staff termination agreements following a consultation period, according to reporting by The Journal on Wednesday. It is linking its restructuring to the “latest technological innovations” and its plan to support “rapid business growth in the GenAI space”. Amazon’s Irish operations were facing up to 325 lay-offs earlier this year. In July, Microsoft announced plans to lay 2.1 per cent of its global workforce, with around 60 Irish staff thought to be affected.There are other technology companies quietly letting people go, because their redundancies don’t meet legislative thresholds for public declarations. Recent reporting in The Irish Times indicates that Galway-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise has dropped its headcount in spite of making announcements about new jobs. Anecdotally, tech workers report that hiring has slowed down; while they are still encouraged to refer friends and contacts for open positions, those friends are far less likely to even get a first-round interview than in recent years.Despite the fact that the technology sector overall is still growing at a fast pace, for those who have been here before, the mood feels worryingly reminiscent of the days of the recession. The job losses we have heard about in recent weeks are on a smaller scale, of course, but the sense of fear is similar.It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The technology sector has been a huge part of Ireland’s recovery, bringing a new era of innovation and prosperity for those in well-paid jobs. For two decades between 2003 and 2023, Google famously avoided any large-scale company-wide lay-offs in Ireland. Being part of this technology revolution brought promises of good pay and conditions for workers and economic security to many.But things have changed, and the trends in Ireland are representative of what’s happening globally. A whopping 830,000 jobs have been lost since 2022 in the tech sector according to layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks them internationally. The number of lay-offs in 2026 is projected to almost surpass each of the past five years; and such lay-offs are, generally, being implemented increasingly by bigger multinationals.The recent news here in Dublin has spooked many. Our tech-employment model has left workers exposed to decisions made in boardrooms elsewhere. But there are things we can do – both individually and as a society.Many workers have joined unions, like the Digital and Techworker Alliance – a subsidiary of the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) – to seek better employee representation and support. The CWU claimed this week to have won “small gains” for workers at TikTok, including timeline extensions for migrant workers, and offers of garden leave in place of payment. But the tech sector remains under-unionised, which leaves many workers extremely vulnerable.[ The Irish Times view on tech jobs: Ireland finds itself exposedOpens in new window ]Losing your livelihood is one of the most traumatic events a person can go through – the financial pressure is immense, as is the personal crisis of self-doubt and loss of social participation. We’ve been here before during Covid and its aftermath, as foreign boardrooms sought to cut spending and headcounts to improve profitability of some of the richest companies in the world. Then, employment bounced back, but this time may be different. If the rise of AI causes – or, as seems likely, is used as an excuse for – further lay-offs, there are still things Ireland can do to avoid widespread employment disruption.Unlike other EU countries, Ireland’s trade union model is “voluntarist” – meaning companies can choose not to engage with unions. This is different from France or Austria where engagement by employers is effectively a legal requirement. This undercuts the power of workers to unionise and advocate for better redundancy packages or pay and conditions. In my experience, engaging with these companies often leads nowhere. They only respond to the law.But if tech firms want to do well here and sell into European markets using the labour of one of the world’s most productive workforces, then operating on an even playing field should be part of the deal. In that deal, pro-European strong workers’ rights protections and collective bargaining requirements should be legislated for, if Ireland is serious about protecting jobs and livelihoods. That means at the very minimum, every large multinational should have to agree major changes to worker pay and conditions, including redundancy programmes, with a representative union. There is currently no mandatory requirement for an employer to negotiate with unions, and that should change.We also need to ensure that the pathways out of work and back into it are well supported. The social protection system has its role to play in this – ensuring people get support in quick order and with compassion to smooth the experience of job transitions.But a more intractable issue is Ireland’s reliance on foreign multinationals. It has been a boon, creating higher income unemployment. But the trade-off is that it is easy for a billionaire chief executive or board thousands of kilometres away to be insulated from the fallout of their decisions.In response to the changing environment, Ireland now needs to focus on investing in commercial research, developing indigenous companies and supporting entrepreneurs who have grand visions for the future. Capital take-up by domestic businesses in Ireland has dropped 70 per cent, with Central Bank credit balance figures falling from €62 billion in 2011 to €17.8 billion in 2023, according to Isme. [ Tech workers are so well paid, many don’t bother to join a union. That’s going to changeOpens in new window ]The EU must play its part too. Ireland’s EU Council presidency gives the State the responsibility for shepherding the EU budget, also known as the Multiannual Financial Framework, through to the end of December. One of the central debates in those negotiations is how much Europe should invest in the industrial bases of its member states. There are still opportunities in the technologies of the future, particularly in climate action. And if we are successful in building these new companies and jobs, there should be a deal: yes, entrepreneurs and those that back them will do well, but they’ll play by European rules. That means strong workers’ rights, proper and fair taxation, and good pay and conditions will have to be part of our shared success.But no matter how well we rebalance the relationship between large employers and our workforce, there is no ignoring the risk that external forces beyond our control will lead to major labour disruption and devastation for the families that rely on those jobs. There is also the threat to our entire economic model as we know it. As long as workers’ incomes in Dublin or Galway are reliant on the decisions made by executives in far-flung foreign boardrooms, they will remain in incredible precarity. The time to protect them, and build an economy better insulated from the vagaries of foreign capital, is now.Eoin Hayes is the Social Democrats TD for Dublin Bay South and previously worked in the tech industry