Tag Archives: job cuts

2023’s first 15 days see 24K techies fired from jobs: Layoffs.FYI

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The year 2023 began on a bad note for tech workers globally and 91 companies have laid off more than 24,000 tech employees in the first 15 days this month, signaling worse days ahead, said job cuts tracker Layoffs.

About 24,151 tech workers lost their jobs, dominated by companies like Amazon, Salesforce, Coinbase and others, according to layoff tracking website Layoffs.fyi.

Layoffs

layoffs in 2023 so far

Crypto lending exchange Crypto.com last week announced that the company will reduce its global workforce by approximately 20 per cent amid ongoing economic headwinds and unforeseeable industry events.

In India, companies like Ola (which fired 200 employees), voice automated startup Skit.ai, dominated the headlines in January.In December last year, over 17,000 tech employees were shown the door.

According to the website which has been tracking job losses since the start of the pandemic, 153,110 workers were let go in 2022, led by companies like Meta, Twitter, Oracle, Nvidia, Snap, Uber, Spotify, Intel and Salesforce, among others.

The number of layoffs reached its nadir in November, which saw 51,489 tech workers lose their jobs.

Google is another Big Tech company expected to take harsh steps to reduce its headcount in early 2023. Approximately 6 per cent of Google employees could be sacked over “not having enough impact”, according to a report by The Information.

Google layoffs in 2023 could see as many as 11,000 employees lose their jobs. It means that 2023 is going to become the worst year in the history of the tech world. All eyes are now on the Big Tech quarterly results that will come out at the end of this month.

Cisco joins Big Tech Layoff, begins firing 4,000 Employees

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Joining the Big Tech layoff season, networking major Cisco has reportedly started laying off 5 per cent of its workforce, which is more than 4,000 employees as a part of its “rebalancing” act and “rightsizing certain businesses”.

Silicon Valley Business Journal reported that many workers took to TheLayoff.com and Blind portal to post about the job cuts at the company. “Impacted by Cisco layoffs!” one company employees said on Blind while another sought “Looking for immediate (software engineering) referrals. Any help would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks.”

However, Cisco did not directly comment on severance packages but said in a statement that “we didn’t take this decision lightly, and we will offer those impacted extensive support, including generous severance packages”.

In its first quarter earning report (Q1 2023) last month, Cisco reported $13.6 billion in revenue, up 6 per cent year over year. Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco, merely said that he would “be reluctant to go into a lot of detail here until we’re able to talk to them. I would say that what we’re doing is rightsizing certain businesses”.

Cisco Chief Financial Officer Scott Herren had described the move as a “rebalancing” act.

Micro-blogging platform Koo says 15 employees fired, not 40

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Homegrown micro-blogging platform Koo on Tuesday refuted earlier reports that it had  laid off 40 employees and clarified that only 15 employees, or 5 per cent of its workforce has been fired.

In a fresh statement to media, the Twitter rival said that 15 positions “have been made redundant or removed due to performance issues.  This is completely aligned with the industry standards of hiring and retrenchment. At the same time, Koo continues to hire talent in its monetisation, product and engineering teams.”

 

The company spokesperson also said Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-founder and CEO, Koo, was recently in London for an industry event for Indian entrepreneurs and not to raise funds. She “did not meet any funders or high net worth individuals (HNIs) in London and did not engage in any fundraising activity,” said the company.

Koo has so far raised $44.1 million to date. Launched in March 2020, Koo is currently available in 10 languages — Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Bengali and English.

According to the platform, it has over 45 million downloads and is actively leveraged by 7,000 high-profile people from across the spectrum.

Koo is backed by Tiger Global and early stage investors like Accel, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and Dream incubator. In February this year, Koo raised $10 million. Its investors include Capsier Venture Partner, Ravi Modi Family Trust, Ashneer Grover, FBC Venture Partners, Adventz Finance among others.

50% companies planning job cuts amid economic downturn: PwC

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At least half of the companies worldwide are planning to cut jobs or prune bonuses and rescinding job offers due to the onset of a global economic downturn, said global financial monitoring firm PwC in its latest report.

In its “PwC ‘Pulse: Managing business risks in 2022” survey in the US, it said 50 per cent of respondents are reducing their overall headcount. “At the same time, respondents are also taking proactive steps to streamline the workforce and establish the appropriate mix of worker skills for the future,” said the report released on Thursday.

This comes as no surprise, after a frenzy of hiring and a tight labour market over the past few years, as “executives see the distinction between having people and having people with the right skills… For example, 50 per cent of all respondents are reducing their overall headcount, 46 per cent are dropping or reducing signing bonuses and 44 per cent are rescinding offers.”

More than 32,000 tech workers have been laid off in the US till July, including at Big Tech companies like Microsoft and Meta, and the worst has not been over yet, said the report.

India job cuts at 25K

In India, more than 25,000 startup workers have lost jobs since the pandemic and more than 12,000 have been fired this year, said the PwC report. “Consumer markets and technology, media and telecommunications companies, for example, are more likely to invest in automation to address labour shortages,” the PwC report mentioned.

At the same time, healthcare is seeing bigger talent challenges than other industries and is more focused on rehiring employees who have recently left.

The global consulting firm last month polled more than 700 US executives and board members across industries. With increasing economic uncertainty, 83 per cent of executives are focusing their business strategy on growth.

“On the whole, this generation of corporate leaders have minimal experience navigating a recession, yet with the possibility of one looming amid increasing geopolitical divides and skyrocketing inflation, they are bullish on their ability to handle what could be ahead,” said Kathryn Kaminsky, vice chair, trust solutions co-leader, PwC US.

Nearly two-thirds of businesses (63 per cent) have changed or are planning to change processes to address labour shortages, up from 56 per cent in January 2022, the report noted.

Crypto.com again fires hundreds of employees in 2nd round

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Crypto lending exchange Crypto.com has laid off more employees in the second round and this time, the firing of employees is worse than the previous job cut, as the global crypto meltdown gets deeper.

According to a Decrypt report, the latest round of job cuts has not been announced publicly. During the call, “leadership expressed they had no intention of going public. Top management is unlikely to make an announcement as, after the June layoffs, they claimed that everyone’s job was safe, and that no more layoffs will happen,” the report said, citing sources.

According to the report, the Singapore-based company this time fired people from critical products like exchange, app and wallet. “The company is hiding the fact that they’ve laid off more than 1,000 employees even though they officially announced laying off 260,” a Crypto.com employee had said on LinkedIn.

“They’ve removed the company directory so we can’t see the numbers go down. It’s not good for morale to see that 1/3 of the invitation list on your next meeting is disabled accounts,” the employee had mentioned.

In June, Crypto.com announced it’s laying off around 260 employees, or nearly 5 per cent of its workforce. Its CEO Kris Marszalek said the company’s approach is to stay focused on executing against its roadmap and optimising for profitability.

“That means making difficult and necessary decisions to ensure continued and sustainable growth for the long term by making targeted reductions of approximately 260 or 5 per cent of our corporate workforce,” he had announced.