Global tech giants are on a massive layoff spree! Almost all large-scale IT companies have or are already freezing and slowing down hiring in the face of sluggish consumer spending, higher interest rates, and the soaring impacts of inflation across the global economic and financial markets. Over the course of just a couple of months, the industry has experienced some of the largest tech layoffs in history, and the names include some of the most significant big tech companies and startups. It's an anxious time for the tens and thousands of IT employees and aspirants amid inflation pressures and recession concerns. Earlier, Microsoft, Apple, and Google, to name a few, announced a hiring freeze and slowdown for the rest of 2022, however, eventually, all the major big tech companies started laying off major portions of employees in order to cut down expenses, and as big tech generally tends to overhire, it deemed fit for them to lay off massive percentages of employees to save themselves from facing revenue shortages amid growing economic concerns. In this article, we have listed the largest tech layoffs in 2022 conducted by big tech companies.
Initially, Zuckerberg disappointed everybody with his determination to establish Meta as the metaverse king. However, his efforts came with a huge cost, his metaverse dreams were more expensive than anybody could have imagined. The company's Reality Labs division lost almost US$9.4 billion so far, this year. Infact, the metaverse failures also brought down Zucks' worth in the world's richest list! Eventually, Meta planned to fire 11,000 workers from its offices across the whole world.
Twitter has been frequently hitting the news due to Elon's outrageous and controversial efforts into shaping the company as a successful social media giant. However, Musk's changes started by firing dozens of Twitter employees, starting with the top executives and then around 3,000 other employees. Musk claimed that the layoffs come as Twitter reportedly lost almost US$4 million per day. In 2022, the company reported that its revenue fell by 1% as compared to last year.
The value of Snap's shares rose after it confirmed cutting off 20% of its employees, which makes upto almost 6,000 people from its workforce. The Snapchat-parent also scrapped off several projects, including its Pixy photo-taking drone and its lineup of Snap Originals premium shows.
Enterprise software company Salesforce is currently planning to lay off over 2,100 employees in a fresh round of job cuts. Hundreds of employees are going to get fired over performance issues and other factors. The employees will be put under a 30-day review, with the aim to let them go after a month.
Lyft has cut off almost 13% of its employees. This is also the second time the company has reduced its headcount since July. In its latest job cut, the company terminated almost 600 employees as Lyft executives planned to reduce operating costs. The company also expects to suffer a charge of approximately US$30 million for these layoffs. It is said to incur these costs during the fourth quarter of 2022.
Stripe recently announced a 14% job cut, effecting around 1,100 jobs in the company. The latest round of layoffs would concern its fintech domain. The Stripe CEO stated that earlier the company hired a massive number of employees due to the pandemic's surge that triggered a rise in e-commerce and online payments, however, the present situation is turning all tables with higher interest rates and other macroeconomic challenges.
Microsoft has conducted massive layoffs across multiple divisions, earlier the company has declined to comment on how many jobs would the layoffs effect, however, the job cuts affected almost 1,000 employees. Multiple laid-off workers turned to Twitter and other social media platforms to inform others about Microsoft's move.
Tech and e-commerce giant Amazon has recently announced layoffs. Currently, the company is undergoing a revenue crunch after losing massive amounts in stock value. The company is reviewing its most unprofitable units and other branches with slow growth. Besides this, Amazon's Alexa domain has recently recorded a loss of almost US$5 billion this year.
Virtual asset exchange Coinbase Global has sacked over 58 employees from its recruiting and onboarding teams. The job cuts come at a time when the entire crypto market has declined due to the ongoing turmoils in the economic and financial markets. This is the second time Coinbase has announced job cuts to operate with more efficiency.
Shopify laid off approximately 1,000 employees for this workforce, which accounts for 10% of its global workforce. After this step, Shopify's share values declined by almost 15%. In a memo, the CEO acknowledged that he had misjudged how long the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom would last, and due to a massive pullback in online spending, Shopify moved to cut down on a number of roles.