DXC Technology employees in Australia are initiating strike action following 14 months of failed pay negotiations, as broader economic pressures threaten IT spending across the Asia-Pacific region.

Key points

• DXC staff are striking after some employees reportedly went five years without a pay increase despite a 24 percent rise in Australian living costs.
• Analyst firm Forrester warns that regional IT spending growth may slow to 9.3 percent in 2026 due to potential economic fallout from the war in Iran.
• IDC predicts a 13.7 percent decline in Asia-Pacific PC shipments this year, driven by component shortages and memory-maker prioritization of datacenter hardware.
• Toshiba, Mitsubishi, and ROHM have entered preliminary discussions to potentially merge their semiconductor businesses to improve global competitiveness.
• NEC is shifting its datacenter strategy toward a "best-mix model," spinning off two Japanese facilities into a joint venture with DigitalBridge and JEXI.
• NTT has developed high-speed network technology capable of sub-100 microsecond communication to help stabilize plasma within experimental fusion reactors.

The industrial action at DXC highlights growing labor tensions in the IT services sector, which could disrupt critical infrastructure for Australian banks and government agencies. Simultaneously, the combination of geopolitical instability and hardware shortages suggests a challenging period ahead for regional technology budgets and supply chain stability.