Australian software firm WiseTech to lay off 2,000 employees
WiseTech Global, an Australian logistics software company, is letting go of 2,000 employees—about 29% of its workforce—over the next two years.
The move comes as the company leans into artificial intelligence for its products and internal systems, with most cuts hitting product development and customer service roles.
Major cuts expected in E2open team
Certain teams may see their numbers drop by up to 50%, including E2open—the US cloud unit WiseTech acquired in August for $2.1 billion.
CEO Zubin Appoo summed it up: "The era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over."
WiseTech's financials amid layoffs
Even with these big changes, WiseTech reported first-half underlying net profit of $114.5 million, about 6% ahead of market consensus, and kept its full-year outlook steady.
Investors seemed pleased—shares jumped nearly 7% after the news.
Tech layoffs and AI shift
WiseTech's layoffs are part of a broader wave of redundancies across US companies this year (2026), including Amazon's recent announcement of 16,000 job cuts.
It's all part of the industry shift toward automation and AI.