Layoffs in the tech sector that marked last year have spilled over into 2023. After a boom during the pandemic that glued everyone to technology, from e-commerce to remote work, and now as the world slowly returns to normal, tech companies are facing a decline in stock prices, and many have announced layoffs.
This week, news emerged that Amazon is laying off more than 18,000 employees. This is a continuation of workforce cuts from last year when Amazon laid off about 10,000 employees.
The e-commerce giant is not the only one continuing the trend of workforce reduction this year; Salesforce also announced this week that it will lay off about 10 percent of its workforce due to economic uncertainty that continues to heavily impact the sector.
Too Much Hiring During the Pandemic
In a notice to employees announcing job cuts, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff admitted that the company had over-hired during the pandemic, and the layoffs are expected to begin next week.
– As our revenues grew rapidly during the pandemic, we hired too many people, which has led to this crisis we are now facing, and I take responsibility for that – wrote Benioff.
In January 2022, the company had 73,541 employees, and by October, it recorded a figure of 79,824 employees.
With hiring freezes, companies like Adobe, fintech Chime, Cisco, Coinbase, and Kraken have also entered the new year.
Computer company HP also announced that it will cut as many as 6,000 jobs over the next three years due to declining demand for personal computers. Intel is following suit by cutting jobs to save three billion dollars this year. Although it is still uncertain how many jobs will be cut, Bloomberg previously reported that the reduction in the workforce could be counted in the thousands.
The start of the new year with job reductions was also marked by the tech company Vimeo, which reported laying off 11 percent of its workforce, with CEO Anjali Sud citing ‘an uncertain economic environment’ as the main reason for the layoffs.
