Big tech job cuts keep coming Zoom latest to trim headcount
The tech industry started the year with a wave of job cuts, around 50,000 in January alone, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing this month. Computer maker Dell said Monday it was cutting about 6,600 jobs. Technology companies big and small have been on a hiring spree in recent years as demand for their products, software and services has soared from millions of people working remotely. But despite all the layoffs announced this year, most tech companies are still significantly larger than they were three years ago. Here’s a look at some of the companies that have announced layoffs so far.
February 2023
Zoom: The video conferencing service is shedding about 1,300 jobs, or about 15% of its workforce.
CEO Eric Yuan said in a blog post on Tuesday that the company has been increasing staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, when businesses have increasingly relied on its service while people are working from home. Yuan said Zoom grew threefold in 24 months to meet demand.
The executive said businesses remained dependent on their service post-pandemic, but that adjustments were needed.
“The uncertainty of the global economy and its impact on our customers means we must take a hard — but important — look inward to realign ourselves to weather the economic environment, deliver for our customers, and achieve Zoom’s long-term vision can,” he wrote.
Yuan said he is also cutting his salary by 98% for the upcoming fiscal year and forgoing his 2023 corporate bonus. He blames mistakes made at the San Jose, California-based company and the actions taken. Yuan’s executive team is also cutting its base salaries by 20% for the upcoming fiscal year and waiving its corporate bonuses for 2023.
Dell: The computer maker has cut its payroll by 5%, or about 6,600 jobs, and says the steps it’s taken to stay ahead of eroding market conditions are no longer enough. Profits at the company, which employed about 133,000 people early last year, have slipped over the past two quarters. The biggest drop in PC shipments to date came last year after a spike in purchases during the pandemic. Dell’s shipments were down 16%.
January 2023
Amazon: The e-commerce company said it would have to cut around 18,000 jobs. That’s just a fraction of the 1.5 million workers worldwide.
Salesforce: The company is laying off 10% of its workforce, about 8,000 employees.
Coinbase: The cryptocurrency trading platform is cutting about 20% of its workforce, or about 950 jobs, in a second round of layoffs in less than a year.
Microsoft: The software company said it will cut about 10,000 jobs, nearly 5% of its workforce.
Google: The search engine giant is the latest in the industry to say it must adjust, saying 12,000 workers, or about 6% of its workforce, would be laid off.
Spotify: The music streaming service is shedding 6% of its global workforce. She did not give an exact number of job losses. Spotify reported in its latest annual report that it had about 6,600 employees, which means 400 jobs will be cut.
SAP: Germany-based SAP, Europe’s largest software company, said it will cut up to 3,000 jobs worldwide, or about 2.5% of its workforce, after a business lost its profits.
PayPal: The digital payments company says it will shed about 7% of its total workforce, or about 2,000 full-time employees, as it grapples with a challenging environment.
IBM: The technology and consulting company’s profits fell last quarter, but the 3,900 job cuts announced in late January were due to an earlier sale of parts of its business. IBM sold its healthcare data business last year and spun off its legacy tech division in 2021.
November 2022
Twitter: About half of the social media platform’s 7,500 employees have been laid off after it was taken over by Tesla’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk.
Lyft: The ride-hailing service said it would cut 13% of its workforce, nearly 700 employees.
Meta: Facebook’s parent company laid off 11,000 employees, about 13% of its workforce.
HP: The computer maker cited economic challenges when it announced job cuts of up to 6,000 jobs over the next three years. PC sales suffered their worst slump on record as a wave of technology purchases by millions of people working from home abated.
Aug 2022
Snap: The parent company of the social media platform Snapchat announced that it was laying off 20% of its employees. Snap’s workforce has grown to more than 5,600 employees in recent years, and the company said at the time that even after laying off more than 1,000 employees, its workforce would be larger than it was a year earlier.
Robinhood: The company, whose app has helped launch a new generation of investors, announced it will reduce its headcount by about 23%, or about 780 people. A previous round of layoffs last year shed 9% of the workforce.
—————
AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke contributed to this report from San Francisco.
By Michelle Chapman
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter.
BusinessComputers and ElectronicsTech-IndustryTechnology