{"id":1744547,"date":"2022-11-19T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2022-11-19T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1744547"},"modified":"2022-11-19T06:03:09","modified_gmt":"2022-11-19T11:03:09","slug":"big-tech-sends-troubling-signals-with-more-layoffs-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/big-tech-sends-troubling-signals-with-more-layoffs-to-come\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Tech Sends Troubling Signals, With More Layoffs to Come"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbig-tech-sends-troubling-signals-with-more-layoffs-to-come%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1744547&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>For the technology sector, 2022 has been the year of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-layoffs\">layoffs<\/a>. From Amazon to Zillow, many of the tech titans have been trimming the fat and reducing their workforce numbers in response to growing recession fears, bad investment decisions, and lower revenues. Will 2023 be more of the same?<\/p>\n<h3>Amazon<\/h3>\n<p>Amazon, the nation\u2019s second-largest private employer, confirmed that it is cutting approximately 10,000 jobs worldwide, representing about 3 percent of its workforce. The layoffs will impact its artificial intelligence, human resources, retail, and services units.<\/p>\n<p>Dave Limp, the senior vice president of devices and services, stated in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aboutamazon.com\/news\/company-news\/a-team-update-from-dave-limp\">announcement<\/a> that the $1 trillion online retail juggernaut is grappling with an \u201cunusual and uncertain macroeconomic environment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter a deep set of reviews, we recently decided to consolidate some teams and programs. One of the consequences of these decisions is that some roles will no longer be required,\u201d said Limp.<\/p>\n<p>In an internal memo on Nov. 17, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned that the corporation would continue to terminate employees in the coming year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been in this role now for about a year and a half, and without a doubt, this is the most difficult decision we\u2019ve made during that time (and, we\u2019ve had to make some very tough calls over the past couple of years, particularly during the heart of the pandemic),\u201d Jassy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aboutamazon.com\/news\/company-news\/a-note-from-ceo-andy-jassy-about-role-eliminations\">wrote<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s not lost on me or any of the leaders who make these decisions that these aren\u2019t just roles we\u2019re eliminating, but rather people with emotions, ambitions, and responsibilities whose lives will be impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Apple<\/h3>\n<p>This past summer, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the iPhone maker would be \u201cinvesting through the downturn\u201d since \u201cwe\u2019ve always found out that it made us stronger on the other side.\u201d Still, 100 contractor positions were cut across several regions in the recruitment wing of the tech behemoth.<\/p>\n<h3>Meta<\/h3>\n<p>Earlier this month, Facebook parent company Meta announced it would be laying off more than 11,000 employees, accounting for 13 percent of its staff. They will receive 16 weeks of pay and two extra weeks for each year of service. Impacted workers will also have their health insurance covered for six months.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4548329\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/06\/21\/zuckerberg-in-nyc-1200x800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy size-medium wp-image-4548329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/themes\/eet\/images\/white.png\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/zuckerberg-in-nyc-600x400-1.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4548329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/zuckerberg-in-nyc-600x400-1.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at an event in New York City, on Oct. 25, 2019. (Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<p>In October, the company offered lackluster guidance for the upcoming fourth quarter. It also shared disappointing numbers during the third quarter: costs and expenses climbed 19 percent year over year, to $22.1 billion, the tech firm\u2019s overall sales tumbled 4 percent, to $27.71 billion, and operating income fell 46 percent, to $5.66 billion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday I\u2019m sharing some of the most difficult changes we\u2019ve made in Meta\u2019s history. I\u2019ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13 percent and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through the first quarter,\u201d Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/about.fb.com\/news\/2022\/11\/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees\/\">Nov. 9 letter<\/a> to staff.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I\u2019m especially sorry to those impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Microsoft<\/h3>\n<p>Microsoft handed out pink slips to around 1,000 employees, affecting teams working on the Edge web browser, Devices, and Xbox. Although this represented a tiny percentage of the tech giant\u2019s workforce of 220,000, Microsoft had fired workers two other times this year, including the latest one in July, when 1,800 employees were terminated.<\/p>\n<p>In August, Microsoft also released about 200 staff members from its four-year-old Modern Life Experiences department, which has focused on professional consumers. In July, the company also made \u201cstructural adjustments\u201d by laying off more than 1,800 people.<\/p>\n<h3>Snap<\/h3>\n<p>The struggling social media platform announced in August that it would be overhauling its workforce, slashing one-fifth of its payroll. In total, nearly 1,300 employees were fired, with much of the focus on workers in the hardware division, app and gaming development, and social mapping app Zenly.<\/p>\n<p>Snap <a href=\"https:\/\/investor.snap.com\/news\/news-details\/2022\/Snap-Inc.-Announces-Third-Quarter-2022-Financial-Results\/default.aspx\">posted<\/a> a $360 million net loss in the third quarter. This sent the stock cratering by more than 25 percent. Year to date, Snap shares have crashed nearly 80 percent.<\/p>\n<h3>Twitter<\/h3>\n<p>It took CEO Elon Musk about a week to fire nearly half of Twitter\u2019s staff, totaling about 3,700 jobs. This was in addition to top Twitter executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust and safety.<\/p>\n<p>But reports suggest that the social network could see a considerable number of employees quit after Musk issued an \u201cextremely hardcore\u201d work ultimatum of \u201clong hours at high intensity.\u201d He presented a 5 p.m. deadline on Nov. 17, which triggered concerns that the website would crash on Thursday evening, leading to various trending hashtags, including \u201cRIPTwitter\u201d and \u201cTwitterDown.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Zillow<\/h3>\n<p>Real estate firm Zillow, based in Seattle, Washington,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2022\/10\/26\/zillow-layoff-300-employees\/\">laid off 300 employees<\/a>, impacting staff members in home and loans and closing services. This might seem in response to the significant downturn in the U.S. housing sector, but the company noted that the cuts were part of its \u201cnormal business processes.\u201d Zillow still maintains a workforce of about 5,000 employees.<\/p>\n<h2>Why Is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-big-tech\">Big Tech<\/a> Crumbling?<\/h2>\n<p>According to Layoffs.fyi, a web portal that monitors tech job cuts, there have been more than <a href=\"https:\/\/layoffs.fyi\/\">120,000 jobs lost<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n<p>This has been a far cry from during the coronavirus pandemic, when the tech industry experienced an enormous boom. Many of these companies hired thousands of workers, despite a global economy that had been mostly shut down. More people shifted their lives to the online world, from shopping to streaming.<\/p>\n<p>But the market is now preparing for a slowdown in multiple areas of the international marketplace.<\/p>\n<p>The advertising business has been slumping. Many tech firms are reliant on ad revenue, but corporate earnings reports have highlighted a declining trend.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Alphabet\u2019s third-quarter earnings reported a 1.9 percent drop in YouTube ad revenue, Google Search revenues rose at a slower-than-expected pace of 4 percent, and Google Network revenues tumbled 2 percent (<a href=\"https:\/\/abc.xyz\/investor\/static\/pdf\/2022Q3_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf\">pdf<\/a>).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2980197\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2019\/06\/27\/Google-1200x800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy size-medium wp-image-2980197\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/themes\/eet\/images\/white.png\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Google-600x400-1.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2980197\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Google-600x400-1.jpg\" alt=\"Epoch Times Photo\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> A woman looks at her smartphone as she walks past Google Building in New York City, on June 3, 2019. Shares of Google parent company Alphabet were down over six percent on Monday, following news reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to launch an anti-trust investigation aimed at Google. (Photo by Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<p>Investors are pressuring tech companies to cut costs, purporting that they would be too slow to respond to a recession with bloated payrolls.<\/p>\n<p>Activist investor and billionaire hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn urged Alphabet \u201cto take aggressive action\u201d on labor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are writing to express our view that the cost base of Alphabet is too high and that management needs to take aggressive action. The company has too many employees, and the cost per employee is too high,\u201d wrote Hohn, managing director at TCI Fund Management, in a four-page\u00a0<span><span><u>letter<\/u><\/span><\/span>\u00a0Nov. 15. \u201cThis growth is excessive, both in relation to historical headcount growth and what the business requires. Our conversations with former executives of Alphabet suggest that the business could be operated more effectively with significantly fewer employees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last, tech leaders are now coping with the end of an era of cheap money. When the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to zero and pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system, the cost of capital was inexpensive. This facilitated a climate of immense fundraising, bloated valuations, significant rallies in tech stocks, and opulent workplaces.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen in the last few years was a cost of money that was zero,\u201d Guillaume Pousaz, CEO of London-based payments software company Checkout.com, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2022\/11\/15\/tech-leaders-reckon-with-higher-interest-rates-down-rounds-and-layoffs.html\">told<\/a> CNBC during a panel discussion this week. \u201cThat\u2019s through history very rare. Now we have a cost of money that is high and going to keep going higher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now that central banks worldwide are removing the spiked punch bowl by raising interest rates and removing monetary easing mechanisms, tech companies\u2014large and small\u2014are being forced to tighten their belts.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-andrew-moran\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/WEB_AndrewMoran.jpeg\" alt=\"Andrew Moran\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Andrew Moran has been writing about business, economics, and finance for more than a decade. He is the author of &#8220;The War on Cash.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the technology sector, 2022 has been the year of layoffs. From Amazon to Zillow, many of the tech titans have been trimming the fat and reducing their workforce numbers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1744550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1744547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1744547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1744550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1744547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1744547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1744547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}