Over the past year, tech giants have collectively laid off over 95,000 employees
Based on the Layoffs.fyi and CNBC, there are more than 483 tech companies w/ layoffs with more than 128202 employees laid off. Listed below are some of the significant staff reductions that have occurred in the technology industry to date.
Microsoft: 10,000
Microsoft's recent decision to lay off 10,000 employees included the unfortunate elimination of a team that was solely dedicated to guiding the development of ethical, responsible, and sustainable outcomes for AI innovation.
Google: 12,000
Early of this year 2023. Google's parent company Alphabet announced that it will be reducing its workforce by laying off 12,000 employees.
Amazon: 18,000
Amazon announced plans to cut staff in November, targeting primarily its human resources and stores divisions, including in its devices and recruiting organizations
Coinbase: 2,000
Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, announced on January 10 that it intends to reduce its workforce by approximately 20% to conserve cash during the market downturn. The company plans to eliminate 950 jobs, according to a blog post. As of the end of September, Coinbase had around 4,700 employees, and it had already cut 18% of its workforce in June 2022.
Salesforce: 7,000
On January 4th, Salesforce announced a restructuring plan which includes a reduction of 10% of its workforce and a downsizing of some of its office space. The company, which employed over 79,000 workers as of December, is making these changes in an effort to streamline operations and improve efficiency.
Meta: 21,000
Meta announced that it will reduce its workforce by 13%, which translates to over 11,000 employees being laid off last year. In a message to employees in March, CEO Mark Zuckerberg also stated that an additional 10,000 employees would be laid off, and hiring for 5,000 positions would be suspended
Twitter: 3,700
According to CNBC. Following the acquisition by Elon Musk, around 3,700 employees, approximately half the staff, were laid off from Twitter. Since then, a significant number of employees have also left due to changes in policies and cultural changes.
Zoom: 1,300
In February, Zoom, a video conferencing provider, announced plans to reduce its workforce by 15%, resulting in the layoff of 1,300 employees.
And list goes on and on ………….. (Snapchat, Netflix, Tesla, Stripe, Lyft, Shopify, Robinhood…..etc)
Layoffs at Meta
On Tuesday, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) announced its plans to lay off an additional 10,000 employees, following the 11,000 job cuts made in November (approximately 13% of its workforce at the time).
According to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, has cited several reasons for the recent layoffs, including a period of slowing growth, rising interest rates to combat inflation, the discontinuation of underperforming projects, and concerns about a potential recession in the coming year. In addition, the company is adopting a 'flatter' management structure by repositioning some managers and project leaders into individual contributor positions to improve overall efficiency.
In the letter, the timeline for the layoffs is also clearly outlined:
Starting tomorrow, the recruiting team will be downsized, and those affected will receive notifications (unfortunately, one of my friend has been impacted by the laid-off)
By the end of April, the Engineering team will undergo restructuring and layoffs.
By the end of May, the sales and business teams will undergo a small-scale restructuring and layoffs.
The details of the layoffs in the international business will be announced later
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As we move forward, who will survive the layoffs? Will I be affected?
(Below is a list based entirely on my personal opinions)
During layoffs, the company's CEO may takes the most of the responsibility, and your direct manager or skip managers may appear innocent. But you should know that if you are laid off, it is your team manager who determines it, not the CEO.
It's important to acknowledge that not putting in enough work could have consequences, especially in tech giants. These companies have been known to lay off under-performers and those who misuse their PTO/vacation time. It's crucial to maintain a strong work ethic and contribute to the team's success. So folks, no where is safe on-warding 2023…. 😖
Whether you are on the layoff list depends on the project you are working on and its value to the company. If the project generates direct revenue or is critical to the company's survival in the future, then I believe you are safe for the time being. 💪
A drop in stock prices does not necessarily mean layoffs; layoffs usually occur when there is a decrease in revenue (lost a major clients or business critical issue) or when there is a huge economic downturn (e,g: SVB shut down). So, pay attention about the market and company revenue growth 🚀