Bye, BIG TECH benefits

Singapore employees at tech giants are feeling the pinch after rounds of company cutbacks and layoffs

- Teo Kai Xiang

Big tech companies once represented the best of both worlds in corporate life - the boundless optimism of working in a field with seemingly endless growth, and great work-life balance padded with lavish perks and luxurious offices.

But employees say the post-pandemic period has been a wake-up call for those who believed in the promise of big tech. The tech industry's cutbacks have hit close to home, affecting offices, benefits and career opportunities.

Eleven current and former Singapore-based employees at Apple, ByteDance, Microsoft, Google and Meta, who spoke to The Sunday Times on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the press, shared a common lament: The golden era of big tech perks and benefits may be coming to a close - and their firms now increasingly resemble the established corporate outfits they once sought to differentiate from.

Most trace these changes to the end of 2022, when tech giants like Google and Meta realised the pandemic-driven boost to digital services would not last. As economic uncertainty mounted, layoffs started.

Thomas (not his real name), 39, a former Meta employee laid off during the company's first round of cuts in November 2022, recalls how his team was disbanded overnight.

"My entire organisation of about 30 engineers and 10 cross-functional staff were informed on that day that we were impacted."

Thomas was among over 11,000 people who lost their jobs, amounting to around 13 per cent of Meta's global headcount at the time. This set the tone for what Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg would later call his company's "year of efficiency" in 2023, which saw a further 10,000 jobs cut.

In hindsight, the signs were there. Thomas' team had been reassigned to new, lower-down-the-value chain work a few months before, and he began noticing cuts to employee perks.