It's the season of layoffs in Silicon Valley: 45,000 employees gone and it's not over yet

New Delhi: Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is the latest to join the list of companies that have laid off people in the recent months in Silicon Valley.

Many experts have described the widespread job cuts as Silicon Valley “bloodbath”, given the pace at which the layoffs are taking place.

Starting today, Meta Platforms Inc. employees who are affected will be told about the job cuts and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has spoken to executives to prepare them for the eventuality, according to reports.

While some tech giants are going all out laying off their employees, many have frozen or confirmed a slowdown in hiring to cut budget spending in anticipation of a recession.

According to a recent tally by Crunchbase, which provides insights on the ongoing business world, the tech firms based in the US have fired more than 45,000 workers as of October 2022. These layoffs include the most recent mass layoff by Twitter that slashed roughly half the company.

The situations in India is no different. According to inc42.com website around 15,708 employees in the country have lost jobs. The data include the layoffs in 44 startups including unicorns like BYJU’S, Chargebee, Cars24, LEAD, Ola, Meesho and MPL.

We take a quick look at some of the major companies that took the downsizing route in anticipation of recession:

Meta
The Menlo Park, California-based company, had warned its employees in late September that the company was planning to slash expenses and restructure teams. The company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, implemented a hiring freeze, and the CEO said that Meta expected headcount to be smaller in 2023 than it is this year. The cuts are expected to affect about 10 per cent of the company, which employed more than 87,000 as of 30 September, according to Insider.

Twitter
Twitter Inc. laid off roughly half the company last week following Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition. Twitter cut close to 3,700 people via email as a way to trim costs following Musk’s acquisition, which closed in late October. In India itself, around 180 of its 230 employees were fired across content, partnerships, content curation, sales, and social marketing teams. Many employees learned they lost their job after their access to company-wide systems, like email and Slack, were suddenly suspended. However, reports later suggested that the company reached out to dozens of employees who lost their jobs and asked them to return as the company realised that their work and experience may be necessary to build the new features Musk envisions.

Apple
In August, Apple laid off about 100 contract recruiters and froze fresh recruitments, according to Bloomberg. Apple is facing slow sales of iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro series in China and is expecting further slash in sales in the upcoming holiday season. As a result the company is trying to cut down on the budget by halting the hirings.

Netflix
The second half of June saw 300 employees losing their jobs at Netflix due to a fall in subscriber numbers. They had also cut 150 jobs the month before.

Microsoft
Microsoft laid off around 1,000 employees across multiple divisions recently. “Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly,” a Microsoft spokesperson. “We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead,” he added. The announcement comes three months after Microsoft said it trimmed less than 1 per cent of employees in July.

Coinbase
Coinbase laid off around 1,100 workers, citing a looming recession, the crypto winter, and its own overly optimistic growth projections. “Today I shared that I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team at Coinbase by about 18 per cent. The broader market downturn means that we need to be more mindful of costs as we head into a potential recession,” said Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO at Coinbase..

Lyft
San Francisco, California-based company Lyft announced earlier this month that it would lay off 13 per cent of its workforce, or about 700 employees, in the ride-hailing company’s latest cost-cutting step to cope with a weakening economy. It follows 60 job cuts earlier this year and a hiring freeze in September.

Seagate
Hard drive maker Seagate Technology announced last month that it plans to cut 8% of its global workforce, or about 3,000 employees, citing economic uncertainty and declining demand for its parts. Customers are sitting on a pile of extra inventory, hurting orders and weighing on Seagate’s financial performance, CEO Dave Mosley said. That necessitated cuts. “We have taken quick and decisive actions to respond to current market conditions and enhance long-term profitability,” he said.

With inputs from agencies

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