Microsoft to Amazon: The tech industry will keep cutting jobs in 2023

With Microsoft and Amazon firing more workers, the tech industry will still be having a hard time in 2023. Here’s a closer look at how many jobs are being cut in the tech industry.

In 2023, the tech industry is still having a hard time, and more companies are announcing job cuts. Microsoft, which is said to be planning to cut jobs in its engineering division, is now the biggest company to join the list. In India, tech startups have taken similar steps, and ShareChat is the most recent one to join the fray. Most tech companies say that the crisis was caused by the economy, but some have said that they hired too many people during the pandemic. The tech industry, which was once thought to be a good way to make money, seems to be going through some kind of change. Let’s look at all the tech companies that have announced these steps and why they are doing them.

The engineering division will be affected by Microsoft’s job cuts.

Bloomberg says that Microsoft plans to cut jobs in key engineering departments, but it’s not clear how many people will lose their jobs. A report from Business Insider says that nearly a third of the company’s employees will be fired, while Sky News says that 5% of employees, or nearly 10,000 jobs, will be lost.

Around 200,000 people work for the company around the world, and if the Insider report is true, this could mean the loss of thousands of jobs. Before October and July 2022, the company cut jobs and stopped hiring new people. But this new round is likely to be even worse. Again, the job cuts are related to the worsening global macroeconomic conditions and the expected slowdown in demand for software and services.

In a past interview with CNBC-TV-18, Satya Nadella talked about how important it is for tech companies to be efficient. He said that the next two years will be “most challenging” and that there will be a “real recession” in some parts of the world. He also said that Microsoft, as a global company, would not be able to avoid these problems. On January 24, the software giant will release its results, and the outlook is also likely to be bad. In fact, the Bloomberg report says that this will be the slowest year for sales since 2017, since even Microsoft’s cloud business hasn’t grown much.

Amazon keeps cutting jobs, and employees in India are also affected.

In November of last year, it was said that Amazon would fire 10,000 workers as part of its plan to restructure and cut costs. But the number has been higher, and starting this month, 18,000 jobs will be lost.

Andy, the CEO of Amazon, wrote in a blog post on January 4: “In November, we had to make the hard decision to cut a number of jobs in our Devices and Books businesses. We also told some employees in our People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organisation that they would leave if they wanted to. I also said that our annual planning process wasn’t over and that I thought there would be more role cuts in early 2023.

In the open letter, Amazon said that those who were affected would get “a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and help finding work elsewhere.” Amazon India also had layoffs, and some employees used apps like Grapevine to let others know that nearly 75% of their team was gone. Some of the comments said that people in the Last Mile, Food tech, Prime, Amazon Pay, and Fresh departments were affected. Some of the comments said that it also affected people who work in engineering. Amazon has also seen a drop in sales and a slowing of demand, which led to the changes.

ShareChat will fire 20% of its staff.

ShareChat announced layoffs in India that will affect about 20% of the company’s employees. A company statement said that the decision was made to “prepare the company to sustain through these [external macro factors] headwinds.” We had to make some of the hardest and most painful decisions in our company’s history, like letting go of about 20% of our very talented employees who had been with us since the beginning.

The company that owns ShareChat and the short-video app Moj, Mohalla Tech, will fire close to 400 employees. This is the third time the company has fired people. In December 2022 and May 2020, 2300 jobs were cut. Reports say that the affected employees will get their full pay for the time they worked for the company plus two weeks of pay as a gift for every year they worked there. They will also get health insurance until June 2023 and 100% of their variable pay until December 2022.

ShareChat hasn’t made as much money from the growth of the short-video market, especially since Instagram and YouTube have taken over the market with their Reels and Shorts features, respectively.

Ed-tech and tech for getting food to people in India

In India, job cuts have also hurt the ed-tech industry a lot. Byju’s, which was once the most valuable startup in the world, said in October that it would cut 2500 jobs, or 5% of its workforce. The business said it wants to start making money again by March 2023. At the end of 2022, there were also job cuts at ed-tech companies like Unacademy. Also in 2022, Unacademy fired close to 1200 people. Last year, there were also job cuts at Swiggy and Zomato, two companies that deliver food. The CEO of Dunzo, Kabeer Biswas, said in a statement that the company had cut 3% of its staff.

SalesForce job cuts

In January of this year, tech company Salesforce also said it would be cutting jobs. Reports said that the company would lay off 10% of its workers and even close some offices. The goal was to cut costs by $3 billion to $5 billion. The company itself said that it had hired too many people during the pandemic and that the slowing economy meant that costs would have to be cut and the company would have to change.

In a meeting with employees in the first week of January, CEO Marc Benioff told them about the job cuts and said there would be more. In a letter to employees, Benioff said, “The environment remains difficult, and our customers are being more careful about what they buy.”

Adobe, Twitter, Meta, and others

There have also been layoffs at other tech companies. In November, 11,000 people lost their jobs because Meta cut about 13% of its staff. Nearly half of Twitter’s staff, or about 3,500 people, were fired when Elon Musk took over, and the firings have mostly kept going on since then. Adobe also said it would cut jobs, but only about 100 jobs would be lost, so this was on a much smaller scale. Cisco Systems also plans to cut 5% of its jobs. Last year, several employees lost their jobs at companies like Snap, which is the parent company of Snapchat, Lyft, and DoorDash.

HP said it will cut 6000 jobs over the next three years because PC sales are falling. Intel, which makes chips, also plans to cut jobs in a similar way, but these cuts will happen over time. A public plan shows that the company wants to save $10 billion by 2025. In October of last year, about 500 people lost their jobs at Peloton, which is best known for its smart exercise bikes.

Seagate Technology Holdings, which is known for making computer hard drives, said it would cut 3,000 jobs. The job cuts at US-based payments company Stripe would affect 14% of its employees.

Apple and Google haven’t said anything about job cuts yet, but Cupertino has stopped hiring. Also, Google CEO Sundar Pichai is said to have told employees to get ready for hard times and cut back on spending. In 2022, there were also rumours that people at Google would be told to shape up or be fired.