In recent months, several tech companies have announced cost-cutting measures, with Amazon, Apple, and Google’s parent company Alphabet all announcing a slowdown or phasing out of hiring.
For the tech sector, the pandemic boom has turned into a post-pandemic crisis as rising interest rates shake stock prices and inflation eats away at profits.
The sector shed 9,587 jobs in October, the largest monthly total since November 2020, according to data from consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, cited by Bloomberg.
Overall job cuts announced by U.S.-based employers rose 13% to 33,843 in October, the highest since February 2021, a report said.
PayPal
PayPal Holdings Inc. is scheduled to release its quarterly results on February 9th. The company’s shares are down about 53% over the past year. They were up 2.3% to close at $81.49 on Tuesday
PayPal has said it will shed about 7% of its total workforce, or about 2,000 full-time employees, as the digital payments company struggles with what it describes as a “challenging macroeconomic environment.”
PayPal said it will make the cuts over several weeks, with some of its organizations being hit harder than others.
The company did not provide any further details. PayPal is the parent company of Venmo, Xoom, and Honey, among others. The company is based in San Jose, California.
“Over the past year, we’ve made significant strides in strengthening and reshaping our business to address the challenging macroeconomic environment while continuing to invest to meet the needs of our customers,” said Dan Schulman, PayPal’s President and CEO, am Tuesday in a statement.
‘While we have made significant progress in adjusting our cost structure and focusing our resources on our core strategic priorities, we still have work to do.’
alphabet
Google parent Alphabet is cutting 12,000 jobs in the latest round of layoffs for tech workers.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the losses are affecting teams across the company, including recruiting and some corporate functions, as well as some engineering and product teams.
Pichai said in the note, “Thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI, I am confident in the great opportunity that lies ahead.
“To fully grasp it, we have to make tough choices. That’s why we conducted a rigorous review of all product areas and functions to ensure our people and roles align with our highest priorities as a company. The roles we eliminate reflect the outcome of this review. They traverse alphabet, product areas, functions, tiers and regions.’
Meta
Facebook’s parent company said in November it would cut 13% of its workforce, or more than 11,000 employees, in one of the biggest layoffs in the tech sector this year as it grapples with a weak ad market and rising costs.
Meta said it will cut 13% of its workforce, or more than 11,000 employees, in one of the biggest layoffs in the tech space this year
Like its peers, Meta has been aggressively hiring during the pandemic to accommodate a surge in social media usage by consumers stuck at home.
But the days of the pandemic boom are over as advertisers and consumers halt spending in the face of rising costs and rapidly rising interest rates.
After pouring billions into CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse vision and with little to show for it, Meta faces rising costs and shrinking profits.
Meta, once worth more than $1 trillion, is now valued at $256 billion after losing more than 70% of its value in the last year alone.
“Not only has online commerce returned to previous trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition and loss of advertising signals have resulted in our revenue coming in much lower than I expected,” Zuckerberg said in a statement, according to Portal Message to staff.
“I got that wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
Mark Zuckerberg broke the news about the downsizing in a phone call with hundreds of meta executives
On a quick call, a red-eyed Zuckerberg addressed the staff but didn’t take any questions.
Sticking to a script that closely matched the phrasing in the morning’s blog post, he called the increased investment in e-commerce a “big mistake in planning.”
Twitter laid off half of its workforce across all teams ranging from communications and content curation to product and engineering following its $44 billion acquisition of Elon Musk.
The cuts affected around 3,700 employees who found out about their fate by email last week.
However, Bloomberg reported that Twitter has reached out to dozens of employees who have lost their jobs, asking them to return.
Twitter laid off half of its workforce into teams ranging from communications and content curation to product and engineering
Elon Musk previously said there was no choice but to impose mass layoffs as the company loses hundreds of millions of dollars each year and needs a financial overhaul
Foreclosure
In January, cloud-based software company Salesforce announced it would lay off 10% of its employees, or about 8,000 workers.
CEO Marc Benioff cited a difficult time for the tech sector and over-hiring during the coronavirus pandemic that led to the decision.
A few weeks ago, the company quietly laid off hundreds of employees.
“Our sales performance process encourages accountability. Unfortunately, this may result in some leaving, and we’re supporting them in their transition,” a Salesforce spokesman said in a statement to CNBC in November.
Salesforce had 73,541 employees early last year — it’s the largest employer in the San Francisco area.
Salesforce said in an August filing that headcount increased 36% over the past year “to meet increased demand for services from our customers.”
Amazon
Amazon said it will cut 18,000 corporate and technology jobs in what will be the largest job cuts in the company’s history.
Amazon reportedly lost $1 trillion over the year after its shares plummeted from a peak during the pandemic.
If the company goes through with its proposal to cut 10,000 jobs, it would lose around 3% of Amazon’s employees
The move comes after the company imposed a hiring freeze affecting large teams like Prime Video, Alexa and Amazon Fresh.
“We are facing an unusual macro environment and we want to align our attitudes and investments by reflecting on this economy,” Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, wrote in a memo obtained by Wall Street was viewed diary.
intel
Intel Corp CEO Pat Gelsinger told Portal that “people action” would be part of a cost-cutting plan.
The chipmaker recently said it would cut costs by $3 billion by 2023 before increasing them to $10 billion by 2025.
The adjustments would begin in the fourth quarter, Gelsinger said, but didn’t specify how many employees were affected.
Some Intel divisions, including the sales and marketing group, could be cut by as much as 20%, Bloomberg News reported last month, citing people with knowledge of the situation.
Chipmaker Intel is reportedly planning large layoffs likely to number in the thousands amid a slowdown in the PC market
Intel employed 113,700 people in July when it cut its annual revenue guidance by $11 billion after missing estimates for second-quarter results.
Intel, based in Santa Clara, California, declined to comment on the job cuts when it reached in October.
Intel has been hit by changing market trends, including the demise of traditional PCs as smartphones and tablets become more popular.
Global PC shipments, including desktops and laptops, fell another 15% year over year in the most recent quarter, according to IDC.
Microsoft
Microsoft initiated layoffs of 10,000 employees in January, citing slowing customer demand and a negative economic environment.
“We are also seeing companies across all industries and geographies exercising caution as some parts of the world are in recession and other parts are anticipating a recession,” CEO Satya Nadella said in a company memo.
The layoffs affected nearly 5% of Microsoft’s global workforce.
According to Axios, Microsoft laid off under 1,000 employees in several business units last year.
In a statement, Microsoft executives said: “Like all companies, we regularly assess our business priorities and make structural adjustments accordingly.
According to Axios, Microsoft laid off fewer than 1,000 employees in several business units in the past month