In the last year, the global tech industry has continued through a painful correction, and Serbia is no longer watching it from the sidelines. In 2025 alone, the global technology sector eliminated about 244,851 jobs, with analysts linking the cuts to economic pressure, cost discipline, and accelerating AI adoption.

What makes this feel different in Serbia is the speed and the concentration.

In March, Serbia saw a sharp wave of IT layoffs tied to several foreign companies. Lottomatica shut down its branch in Serbia and dismissed 348 employees in a single day, Zendesk closed its office with around 60 people affected, and Playstudios was expected to cease operations as well; estimates from sector representatives put the total at roughly 450 to 550 lost jobs within about ten days.

That number is not just a headline.

It is a serious signal.

Because once more than 500 people in one sector lose jobs in such a short period, the conversation can no longer stay at the level of isolated company decisions. It becomes a broader question about the future of the labor market, the resilience of Serbia’s IT model, and the direction of software development itself.

Serbia’s warning sign

The Serbian layoffs do not appear to come from a single cause. Sector representatives cited post-acquisition consolidation, higher labor costs, the reduction of state incentives, and growing automation pressure, while some roles such as customer support, QA, and data migration were described as especially exposed to AI-driven replacement.

That matters because Serbia’s IT growth over the last decade was built partly on being a strong outsourcing and engineering destination. If foreign firms now reassess whether Serbia remains the right place for certain operations, while at the same time using AI to reduce headcount globally, then the old growth formula starts to look less stable.

Global trend, local impact

What is happening in Serbia is not separate from the world. Global layoffs remained severe in 2025, and analysts said many companies were no longer just correcting over-hiring, but permanently eliminating roles as they rebuilt around AI-first operating models.

This is the part developers should take seriously: the issue is not only that companies want to save money. It is that many of them are redesigning how work gets done, which means fewer routine tasks, leaner teams, and higher expectations per engineer.

The bigger question

So what should we ask now?

Not only, “Will there be more layoffs?”
But also, “What kind of developer will still be in demand three years from now?”

If AI can generate boilerplate, assist with testing, speed up documentation, and reduce parts of support, QA, and repetitive engineering work, then the market will increasingly reward people who can do more than execute tickets. Companies will still need developers, but they will likely need fewer people for purely repetitive implementation and more people who can design systems, validate AI output, understand product context, and make sound technical decisions.

What this changes for developers

For developers in Serbia and globally, this may be the real transformation of IT.

The role is moving away from pure code production and toward problem definition, architecture, integration, review, and orchestration. In a market under pressure, the safest position is not being the cheapest engineer or the fastest typist; it is being the person who can combine technical depth, business understanding, and the ability to work effectively with AI tools without losing quality and accountability.

That may be the uncomfortable truth behind this layoff wave.

The future of IT is probably not smaller because software matters less. It may become smaller in some areas because the same amount of output can now be produced with fewer people, different skills, and much stronger leverage from automation and AI.

And that leads to the real question Serbia should be asking:

If the world is moving from volume-based hiring to high-leverage, AI-assisted engineering, is our IT sector adapting fast enough, or are we still preparing people for a version of the market that is already disappearing?