Feb 25 (Reuters) - Australian software firm WiseTech Global will axe about 2,000 jobs, nearly a third of its global workforce, in a two‑year restructuring that could rank among the country's largest artificial intelligence-linked job reductions.
Shares of the company, which announced an estimate-beating first-half profit on Wednesday, closed 11.1% higher at A$47.74, while Australia's benchmark S&P ASX 200 rose 1.2%.
The layoffs highlight how quickly AI is reshaping workplaces globally, as fast‑improving automation tools take over routine administrative work and handle complex coding tasks with increasing speed and precision, driving widespread adoption.
Last month, Amazon announced 16,000 job cuts worldwide in a second round of redundancies at the tech giant in three months, adding to a wave of redundancies by U.S. companies across sectors this year.
WiseTech, which makes shipping and logistics management software, plans to integrate AI into its customer software as well as internal operations, affecting around 29% of its global workforce of around 7,000 across 40 countries.
The cuts could shrink some teams by half, starting with product and development, and customer service roles across the organisation. One of the divisions affected will be WiseTech's U.S. cloud computing arm, E2open, acquired in August for $2.1 billion, which may see cuts of up to 50%.
"Software development has experienced its most significant shift in decades," WiseTech Chief Executive Officer Zubin Appoo said.
"The era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over."
WiseTech, founded more than three decades ago, reported first-half underlying net profit of $114.5 million, 6% ahead of market consensus, and announced an interim dividend of 6.8 cents while reaffirming its full-year outlook.
Despite the day's surge, WiseTech's shares remain 68% below their November 2024 peak, as allegations surrounding founder and former CEO Richard White, including claims of payments to an alleged former lover, fuelled an investor exodus. Concerns around how AI would affect the software maker also kept the stock under pressure.
"With recent share price weakness was more governance-driven than fundamental and with the fiscal 2026 guidance reaffirmed, the underlying trajectory remains sustainable despite near-term disruption," said Marc Jocum, senior product and investment strategist at Global X ETFs.
(Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Roshan Thomas; Editing by Maju Samuel, Shinjini Ganguli, Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
