Layoffs mount as recession looms

Many companies extend hiring freeze, and are focusing on restructuring businesses

- UMA KANNAN Bengaluru

Technology and the startup ecosystem globally are facing unprecedented challenges triggered by tightening monetary policies, macroeconomic downturn and slowdown. Amidst all this, most tech and start-up companies have now woken up to the need for rationalisation of workforce and become more capital efficient. The ripple effect of which is also being felt back home in India.

From Byju's, Unacademy, Zomato to Google, Cisco, Twitter, Meta and Amazon, many companies have announced layoffs in recent months. While many have cited funding winter and restructuring as the reasons for layoffs, Facebook parent Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that in the new environment (post-Covid period), 'we need to become more capital efficient'.

Meta has announced that it would fire 11,000 employees or 13% of its workforce. "We've cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint.

We're restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won't bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I've also made the hard decision to let people go," Zuckerberg told his employees.

Apart from Twitter and Meta, recently, Cisco and Amazon too joined the growing list of companies that are firing employees. While Cisco fired over 4,000 employees or 5% of its workforce as part of its 'restructuring' plan, e-commerce giant Amazon will fire close to 10,000 employees globally, and the company has been sending out voluntary separation offers to some of its Indian employees.

According to people familiar with the development, the actual number of layoffs in Amazon India will be known only in December or in January 2023, as the company has given 30 November 2022 as the deadline to participate in the VSP (voluntary separation programme).