Tech Companies Fired Over 32,000 Employees In Silicon Valley in July
In the last three months, several companies have announced job cuts in a bid to control costs as there is growing fear of a recession storm that may hit soon because of Ukraine’s invasion and high inflation. As of July 2022, over 32,000 employees in Silicon Valley have been fired, according to a detailed report published by Crunchbase. Big tech companies such as Netflix, Shopify, Coinbase, and others have laid off hundreds of workers.
We have been hearing about mass layoffs almost every week, which suggests that no job is currently as steady, and 2022 is turning out to be another worse year for many people as they are losing jobs for no apparent reason. While some tech companies have already started freezing the hiring process, many are straightaway some amount of their workforce to weather the economic uncertainty. Around 64 notable tech companies in the US announced job cuts in July and the total number of layoffs is more than 32,000.
Shopify, which is a popular e-commerce platform, fired over 1,000 employees last month, according to the data accumulated by Crunchbase. The job cuts have been made in recruiting, support, and sales departments. The company’s CEO Tobi Lutke asserted the platform is just cutting down on “over-specialized” and duplicate roles. This seems to be a cost-saving measure as he says that the company has hired more employees in recent times to meet the expected growth with the thought that the e-commerce industry will continue to grow beyond coronavirus pandemic.
Twitter also sacked 30 percent of its talent acquisition team, according to a report from Wall Street Journal. The cited source says that the micro-blogging site was facing “increasing business pressures” and that it is restructuring its talent acquisition team due to revised business needs. Microsoft also reduced 1 percent of its 1,80,000 workforce as it plans to make some structural adjustments and meet business needs.
A recent report from Wired claimed that TikTok has started laying off employees in the name of company-wide restructuring and that it plans to fire less than 100 employees. Other start-ups like Whoop, a fitness wearable company, laid off 15 percent of staff. Vimeo, a video sharing platform, reportedly removed 72 employees. The list of tech companies that fired many of their employees is very long and it even includes Outbrain, Niantic, Gemini, and more.
In just two months, Netflix laid off a total of 450 employees and many contractors after the company saw a dip in subscriber growth and revenue. The company explained that the layoffs have been done to control expenses and to make sure that the costs are in line with their “slower revenue growth.”
The cryptocurrency industry has also been affected and popular platforms like Coinbase have fired over 1,100 employees, which is basically 18 percent of its workforce. The company’s CEO Brian Armstrong first blamed “economic conditions” for the layoff, and then also stated that Coinbase “over-hired” because crypto was getting good traction on a weekly basis.
Meanwhile, other popular tech companies such as Spotify, Apple, Meta, and Google have announced their plan of either freezing or slowing down the hiring process, while a few have just cut the set target for this year and clarified that they will continue to hire.
