Oluwanifemi Ojo
From last year, tech giants have embarked on job cuts, and the question of every employee will likely be who’s next to announce downsizing after the likes of Twitter, Spotify, and Microsoft among others.
Since the year began, world’s leading tech companies have been announcing the laying off of staff. Google leads the way with her intended 12000 layoffs, Microsoft follows with 10,000. Amazon, Shopify, Meta and Netflix are also strongly behind.
A number of these tech companies have blamed the cutting of jobs on the current economic situation. Some say recession, inflation while others the increase in interest rate.
In reality, we may say that these tech companies are trying to tighten their spending and cut cost because of people’s shift in behavior after the ease of the lock down.
In retrospect, these companies made their largest earnings during the lock down as their services were highly sought after. During this period, what reigned was remote job which required the use of online meeting tool. Also, people could afford to watch movies on Netflix even during working periods as it is difficult to suspect.
Also, buying online was a norm, ordering for fast meals and groceries because of the ban on movement. People stay more online to connect with friends and family during the lock down.
This upsurge in online activities for tech companies caused a boom for them and they began employing more people. Some roles even required having multiple skilled personnel so the role will not be left to suffer should incase an employee leaves.
According to Forbes, tech companies had predicted the future of work to be remote, so they increased their hiring.
Now that the world has returned back to a pretty much normal life. The demand for services have dropped. People are tired of staying at home, and some take up full time roles. Meanwhile, hybrid roles are now getting popular by the day.
Rather than the full time remote job, we now have hybrid jobs because some organizations still prefers physical interaction and connection. People have even become more interested in the outside world now considering the length of time spent indoors.
However, this does not dispute the fact that some of these organisation are affected by the economy. Some countries are going into recession which means less spending by her citizens. This gives room for organizations to cut cost and the implication would be laying off of staff.
According to Forbes, Meta specifically mentioned that lower cost of advertisement is expected for Q4 and early 2023. Meaning Meta will not spend as much as they used to on advertising during this period.
On the other hand, cutting jobs in these big companies does not mean the company is in crises. However, because of their acquired prestige we may not be able to identify laying offs from a floating business and for increasing profit.
