Australian logistics software firm WiseTech Global will lay off about 2000 people over the next two years as it adopts artificial intelligence across its software and internal operations.
The layoffs would affect around 29 percent of WiseTech’s global workforce across 40 countries, and could reduce some teams to half, starting with product and development, and customer service roles across the organisation.
Shares of the software firm jumped 10.7 percent in early trading to $47.60 per share.
“Software development has experienced its most significant shift in decades,” chief executive officer Zubin Appoo said, while announcing a marginal two percent increase in first-half underlying profit.
“The era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over.”
One of the divisions affected will be the recently acquired US cloud computing firm, E2open, which may see a reduction of up to 50 percent.
Investors have shunned WiseTech stock since late 2024. Its shares are down 70 percent since hitting a record-high in November 2024, after founder and former CEO Richard White was accused of making payments to an alleged former lover, among others.
