Newsman: The US work force seeing the Year 2023 with bad news in job market. January has been filled with headlines announcing job cuts at company after company. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, Microsoft (MSFT) and Vox Media announced layoffs that will affect more than 22,000 workers as the move following job cuts earlier this month at Amazon, Goldman Sachs and Sales force.
More companies are expected to do the same as firms that aggressively hired over the last two years slam on the brakes, and in many cases shift into reverse. The current layoffs are across multiple industries, from media firms to Wall Street, but so far are hitting Big Tech especially hard.
The increasing likelihood of a recession, higher interest rates and apathetic demand due to rising prices, tech businesses are slashing their costs.
The Job numbers began falling last year as the year went on, with December’s job report showing the lowest monthly gains in two years. Layoffs.fyi data shows the U.S. tech companies that trimmed the most jobs last year that include Meta: 11, 000, Cisco: 4,100and Twitter: 3,700.
The website’s tallies – which are likely an undercount – have continued at a fast clip in 2023, with more than 25,000 layoffs recorded so far this year.
The software company Microsoft confirmed Wednesday its reducing workforce by 10,000 people through the end of the third quarter of the 2023 fiscal year the global economy slows.
The cuts come “in response to macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities,” the company’s CEO Satya Nadella released in a statement to its employees Wednesday.
“It’s important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we will continue to hire in key strategic areas. We know this is a challenging time for each person impacted,” Nadella wrote in the statement. “The senior leadership team and I are committed that as we go through this process, we will do so in the most thoughtful and transparent way possible.”
Microsoft reported the layoffs would affect roughly 5% of its workforce, with some notifications happening as early as Wednesday. Microsoft employs about 221,000 people around the world, including 122,000 in the United States, as of June 30, 2022.
Google (GOOGL)’s parent said Friday it is laying off 12,000 workers across product areas and regions, or 6% of its workforce. Alphabet added 50,000 workers over the past two years as the pandemic created greater demand for its services. But recent recession fears have advertisers pulling back from its core digital ad business.
“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”
The Goldman Sachs will lay off up to 3,200 workers this month amid a slump in global dealmaking activity. More than a third of the cuts are expected to be from the firm’s trading and banking units. Goldman Sachs (FADXX) had almost 50,000 employees at the end of last year’s third quarter.
McDonald’s (MCD), which thrived during the pandemic, is planning on cutting some of its corporate staff, CEO Chris Kempczinski said this month.
“We will evaluate roles and staffing levels in parts of the organization and there will be difficult discussions and decisions ahead,” Kempszinski said, outlining a plan to “break down internal barriers, grow more innovative and reduce work that doesn’t align with the company’s priorities.”
The publisher of the news and opinion website Vox, tech website The Verge and New York Magazine, announced Friday that it’s cutting 7% of its staff, or about 130 people.
“We are experiencing and expect more of the same economic and financial pressures that others in the media and tech industries have encountered,” chief executive Jim Bankoff said in a memo.
Salesforce (CRM) will cut about 10% of its workforce from its more than 70,000 employess and reduce its real estate footprint. In a letter to employees, Salesforce (CRM)’s chair and co-CEO Marc Benioff admitted to adding too much to the company’s headcount early in the pandemic.
BlackRock Layoffs are also hitting Wall Street hard. The world’s largest asset manager is eliminating 500 jobs, or less than 3% of its workforce.
Today’s “unprecedented market environment” is a stark contrast from its attitude over the last three years,, when it increased its staff by about 22%. Its last major round of cutbacks was in 2019.
Consumers’ buying habits shifting toward e-commerce and other online services was incredibly seen during the pandemic. But now, workers are returning to their offices and in-person shopping is bouncing back.
The year 2022 had the second-highest level of job gains on record. The highest level of hiring occurred in 2021, when 6.7 million jobs were added.
In the first year of the pandemic, the US was in fact shut down and 9.3 million jobs were lost.
