Google, Microsoft, and more tech layoffs are piling up
Big Tech continues to reel from its massively difficult 2022!
While some of sector’s biggest names are beginning 2023 by laying off employees by the thousands.
Tweet on Google and another big tech layoff
Big Tech continues to reel from its massively difficult 2022, and some of the sector's biggest names are beginning 2023 by laying off employees by the thousands, as @google announced to slash over 12K jobs!#Google #googlelayoffs #Recession2023 pic.twitter.com/EWNs0PqfRB
— The_Journalbiz (@the_journalbiz) January 20, 2023
Bloomberg chart on layoffs amid recession
In 2022, companies like Meta (META), Amazon (AMZN), and Intel (INTC) announced major job cuts following years of expansion.
Tech is set up for a better year in 2023, but high interest rates, inflation, a hawkish Fed, and spending slowdowns among both advertisers and consumers have created a storm that’s not passing just yet.
Google parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) is the latest of Big Tech’s titans to slash employees in droves. To date, tech’s biggest names have slashed almost 50,000 jobs. Here’s a roundup of major layoffs that have rattled the sector just a few weeks into the new year.
Alphabet
Alphabet announced today that it’s slashing 12,000 jobs—the company’s largest-ever round of layoffs. The layoffs are set to affect the company across the board, but are likely to focus outside the company’s core businesses.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in a memo that these layoffs are a byproduct of the massive growth Google was preparing for amid the pandemic – an expansion that never fully materialized.
“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” he wrote. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today,” he said.
Microsoft
Microsoft (MSFT) said it’s laying off 10,000 workers as it seeks to cut costs.
These cuts affect about 4.5% of Microsoft’s total corporate workforce of 221,000. The Redmond-based giant reportedly also shed jobs in October, according to Axios, and did a small number of layoffs over the summer.
“We’re also seeing organizations in every industry and geography exercise caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a statement.
Amazon
The e-commerce giant plans to lay off 18,000 employees in its corporate workforce. It’s an even higher number than company watchers were perhaps expecting, as The New York Times reported that Amazon was laying off 10,000 employees. The company began its cuts back in November, and then as now, it’s all about cutting costs.
“Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so,” Jassy told employees in a statement. “These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure.”
Salesforce
Salesforce (CRM) is laying off about 8,000 workers, or about 10% of its workforce, and the company’s simultaneously planning to cut office space. The CEO Marc Benioff wrote that “the environment remains challenging, and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions.”
