Job listing website giant Indeed released a report showing August job postings for the tech industry were down 19% from 2020 levels. The report was published on Hiring Lab, an economic research website powered by Indeed, with the eerie title ‘Canadian Tech Hiring Freeze Continues.’ And the numbers don’t lie. As of mid-2025, the Canadian tech hiring freeze has entered its third year of failing to see an increase in tech job listings.
But it isn’t only Canada facing the issue. According to the same study, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and France are the three worst countries for seeing a decline in tech hires. Switzerland is experiencing an almost 45% decline in job listings, with the United Kingdom and France not far behind at 41% and 38%, respectively.
With Canada not even being close to the worst country, does this show the tech industry is changing tactics? Read on to find out.
The Canadian Tech Hiring Freeze
The Canadian tech job hiring market hasn’t managed to improve since the post-Covid boom. The post-Covid boom was huge, with the ‘zero interest rate period’ following the pandemic leading to a spike in careers like data scientists, helpdesk technicians, and assurance analysts. The central banks then decided to dial up interest rates, and the rapid decline in demand was inevitable. By the end of 2023, tech job listings were at their lowest, and they haven’t recovered since.
That said, the numbers are looking at the broader tech career market. When you go into the specifics and look at some job listings, they are on the up. The Indeed data highlights how, of the 135 tech careers with at least 100 postings in Q1 2025, 56 of them (41%) exceeded their early 2020 levels.
Conversely, there has been a massive 51% drop in the usually high category of software engineers.
Other mid-salary tech roles have also dropped, including the following job titles:
- Software engineers
- Web developers
- NET developers
- Front-end developers
Interestingly, senior tech roles aren’t suffering. Any job listing with the keywords ‘senior,’ ‘lead,’ or ‘principal’ in the job title was still up 20% compared to junior roles that are down 25%. Still, that trend was also apparent in 2020.
What’s Changing About the Tech Industry
It’s not necessarily that the tech industry is changing. The only big change is artificial intelligence (AI), and that’s a sector on its own, developing at a rapid pace and not experiencing a freeze in careers.
The issue is simply that there was a massive tech boom that peaked in 2022 after Covid, and it has declined without recovering. While there isn’t the same demand as there was before 2022, there’s still a demand. These numbers are simply looking at a decline since 2020. If Covid hadn’t happened, the numbers would probably be more stable.
Apart from AI, the development of specific industries is creating micro tech hiring trends. For example, online casinos are booming. There are more than 380 online casinos available in Canada, with 75 casinos and 86 regulated gaming sites in Ontario, including the best of the regulated sites listed on Casino.ca Ontario. The number of users should increase to 22.7 million by 2029, generating a potentially thriving job market for front-end web and software developers.
Some of the best and fastest-growing casinos in Canada that could potentially fuel the tech job market include:
- Tooniebet
- Casino Days
- Betiton
- Toppz
Is Artificial Intelligence Becoming a Problem?
No, not necessarily. The Indeed report mentioned AI specifically, noting that half of the decline in job listings happened before ChatGPT was ever available to the public. Despite that, AI could be one of the reasons tech postings haven’t rebounded like people would hope. Jobs specifically related to AI are the ones with job listings above the early 2020 levels.
Some of the most popular AI job posts include:
- Machine learning engineers (up 38% from 2020)
- AI Developers (up 50%+ from 2020)
- Data engineers
- AI data center technicians
Interestingly, the mean salary for machine learning engineers is also one of the highest of anything tech-related, sitting at $213,000.
There’s also the theory that the AI revolution has reduced interest in hiring new tech employees. Indeed, research found a huge overlap between GenAI tool capabilities and the skills and tasks listed in tech job role descriptions. That means automating some of the tasks humans once did could be fueling the lack of industry career growth.
Still, the downward trend of no new tech careers was already plummeting hard, so it’s difficult to blame AI.
The Average Salary for Technology Careers in Canada
Despite failing to thrive from the post-pandemic numbers, the tech jobs available do offer lucrative salaries. Some of the highest-paid tech roles and their wages (data from Robert Half) include:
- ERP Technical/Functional Analyst: $119,250 – $167,750
- Applications Architect: $115,000 – $185,250
- Senior Software Engineer: $118,000 – $158,000
- AI Architect: $107,500 – $162,750
- Data Architect: $109,250 – $175,000
There are still roles available with incredible salaries.
The post-pandemic tech boom created a post-pandemic tech boom slump. It’s not necessarily that there are no jobs available; it’s that there aren’t as many listings as in the tech boom era. Does it mean the tech industry is changing tactics? No, unless you want to look at AI. It just means it might not reach those tech boom numbers again.