Judging by developments so far, this year for Serbia’s IT sector will be another in which the industry goes through phases of adjustment that began after the pandemic hiring boom.
While the mass layoffs during 2022 and 2023 seemed like a one-off market correction, the current restructuring of this branch of the economy can hardly be attributed to a single cause or confined to a clearly defined period.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been at least four cases of larger-scale layoffs – the companies like Lottomatica, Zendesk, Playstudios and Levi9 have together cut several hundred jobs. In principle, IT firms, after the initial cooling of the market following the pandemic boom, are now simultaneously facing pressure on profitability, changes in global IT supply chains, rising labour costs in Serbia, and the accelerated use of artificial intelligence (AI).
When the software services company Levi9 (headquartered in Novi Sad, with offices in Belgrade and Zrenjanin) announced that it was closing its branch in Zrenjanin and reducing positions at its other two locations in the country, technological progress – including AI – was cited as a key reason.
“Organisational changes we are implementing are part of a broader transformation of our business, driven by rapid technological development and changes in the IT industry. AI and automation have, for some time, been changing the way technological solutions are developed and delivered, and recently that process has accelerated further. A major transformation is currently taking place in the market, to which all participants in the industry are adapting. As a company operating on the global market, we closely monitor these changes and adapt to them in order to remain competitive and aligned with new market demands,” they told Bloomberg Adria, without specifying exactly how many people the Dutch firm laid off in Serbia. According to the latest official data, they employed over 650 workers in 2024.
Earlier, it was reported that the American gaming company Playstudios, which holds the exclusive licence for mobile versions of the popular Tetris, is closing its branch in Belgrade – which was also its only studio in Europe and its largest R&D (research and development) centre, where local experts, among other things, worked on the aforementioned game, now more than four decades old.
The move was presented as part of broader efforts to optimise the company’s finances.
Zendesk, which entered Serbia in 2023 by acquiring the Novi Sad start-up Tymeshift, has also been reported to be closing its local branch, which employed around 60 people. Zendesk did not answer what the exact reason for this move was, merely recalling that on 24 March it announced a reorganisation of its business units which, as they say, “resulted in a smaller scale of layoffs”.
Finally, Lottomatica laid off 348 employees in its Serbian subsidiary PWO, with the parent company stating that for strategic reasons it decided to carry out a “deeper integration of PWO”, aiming to ensure the “full internalisation of certain strategic activities within the corporate functions of the headquarters”.
Companies have not commented on the potential broader consequences for the Serbian IT sector resulting from reliance on AI and automation, while among observers of the global IT landscape, there is a growing belief that the wave of layoffs is not directly linked to AI progress, but that it is being used as a convenient justification.
“I wouldn’t say there is a single reason explaining the current layoffs. It is not serious to claim that AI is to blame for everything, but it is also insufficient to say it is merely a consequence of overhiring during the pandemic. It is more realistic that several factors have overlapped: a correction after a period of rapid growth, pressure on profit margins, rising labour costs in Serbia, caution among global companies, and in some cases, AI as a convenient excuse for workforce cuts that might have happened anyway.
Each company has its own internal situation, clients, projects and cost structure, so I would not generalise. It is hard to believe that companies have been laying people off in a short period solely because of artificial intelligence. It is much more likely that AI is just one part of a broader picture,” says Slobodan Draksimović, CEO of WAIM, an AI-based digital marketing company.
He adds that it is unlikely that any specific profession is automatically at risk solely because of AI, which is a powerful tool, but still just a tool. Technology certainly poses a greater threat to roles consisting of routine, repetitive tasks without clear added value, but on the other hand, “people who understand system architecture, the product, business logic, clients and the application of AI will become increasingly valuable,” he assesses.
“My greatest fear is not that AI will replace people overnight, but that part of management will overestimate its current capabilities. If companies start believing that serious teams can be replaced solely by tools, I believe that at some point we may experience something similar to what happened with the internet at this stage of development – that the AI bubble will burst and pull down those making such hasty decisions,” Draksimović notes.
Asked about the likelihood that this year could be marked by a new wave of layoffs or office closures in Serbian IT, and what the scale might be, he points out that it would be irresponsible to make precise forecasts, especially given that in a short period several companies have already laid off a significant number of employees in Serbia.
“Each of those companies, of course, has its official reasons and business justifications, but the broader trend is quite clear. Large international companies are primarily guided by profit margins, cost optimisation and the assessment of a given market’s profitability. Serbia has built a reputation in recent years as a high-quality IT market, but precisely because of this it has also become significantly more expensive than before. For some foreign companies, particularly those that view development centres solely through labour costs, this raises the question of relocating operations to cheaper markets such as India, Pakistan or certain African countries. That is why I believe there is reason for caution,” he explains.
Levi9 notes that decisions to eliminate jobs are not frequent, but that in the dynamic IT industry, companies occasionally have to adjust their organisation in order to remain aligned with the market and client needs.
“In that process, team structures and certain roles are adjusted in line with the directions in which the industry is developing and the areas experiencing the greatest growth, such as artificial intelligence, data and cloud solutions, as well as product engineering. More broadly, Serbia has a strong base of high-quality IT professionals and is closely connected to the global market, which is why all major changes from the global market are quickly reflected in the domestic environment,” they emphasise.
In any case, Draksimović would not characterise the current state of the domestic IT sector as a crisis. “I think that would be too strong. I would rather say that domestic IT is entering a phase of serious correction and maturation. The period of rapid and almost automatic growth is definitely behind us. The key to the growth of Serbia’s IT industry will lie in specialised knowledge, proprietary products, AI implementation and greater business value.”
(Bloomberg Adria, 04.05.2026)
https://rs.bloombergadria.com/biznis/kompanije/103280/zasto-srpski-it-i-dalje-otpusta/news#