There’s no doubt that the tech sector, or rather tech companies, is having a tough time: Every day we hear reports of wholesale layoffs of corporate employees, the most prominent of which is Twitter, which laid off thousands of employees soon after billionaire Elon Musk acquired it.
“Twitter”, “Meta”, “Snapchat”, “Microsoft”, “Anghami”, “Amazon”… International technology companies whose employees face the same fate, “expulsion”.
Several factors have led to the wave of layoffs
According to digital transformation expert Paul Samaan, several factors led to the wave of layoffs, the most important of which are: First, when the “Corona” pandemic spread and working life almost stopped, everyone has resorted to social media and many jobs have started to be done remotely, and therefore the number of workers has increased. Big users of social media. When life returns to normal and employees return to work, the number of employees decreases.
Secondly, the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war and fears of nuclear war.
Thirdly, the inflation affecting the world’s major economies and the economic recession.
Semaan stressed that despite the need to take layoff measures to ensure the continuity of companies, this will negatively affect them in terms of developing their services, adding new features and of course their productivity, due to the loss of high skills and expertise that are hard to find.
Samaan stressed that the tech sector is not in danger, as it is a phase and will pass, hoping it passes with as little damage as possible.
Twitter loses 50% of its employees
Twitter’s new boss, billionaire Elon Musk, has fired 50% of 7,500 employees, revoked an internal work-from-home policy and mandated long working hours, while his attempts to reform Twitter have been met with chaos and delays.
Musk asked employees to choose between being “very busy” working long hours or losing their jobs, saying “only outstanding performance will count as a pass mark.”
Employees were also asked to enter a link to confirm their commitment to the “new Twitter” by 5:00 pm Thursday New York time, and if they do not enter the link, they will automatically lose their job and receive 3 months of severance pay.
Some advertisers stopped their Twitter ads and campaigns after it was taken over by Elon Musk. Advertisers are concerned about the site’s prospects, with concerns over safety, trust and the spread of misinformation.
There are two worrying factors: the first is the firing of half of Twitter’s employees and the firing of most of the contractors and senior officials,
The second, offering new features, quickly and without delays, as happened in the past two weeks, will increase the possibility of malfunctions and problems.
12,000 Meta employees face the same fate
As part of a major restructuring process underway at social media giant Meta, the Meta Group, which includes the companies Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has announced the layoff of 13% of its employees worldwide.
This ratio means that 11,000 of Meta Group’s total 87,000 employees will lose their jobs.
Meta Group’s two largest platforms, Facebook and Instagram, have come under increasing pressure from rival platforms like TikTok. Although Meta has spent billions of dollars developing the Metaverse platform, Zuckerberg’s long-term project, it’s still just an idea that hasn’t materialized in any way.
10,000 employees outside “Amazon”
In an unexpected move, the company ‘Amazon’ confirmed that it has started laying off employees to deal with the economic crisis, and the size of the reduction constitutes ten thousand employees, which is just under one percent of the current wage freeze. for the group, which had 1.54 million employees worldwide at the end of September, with the exception of seasonal workers who are hired during the busiest periods, especially during the end-of-year holidays.
The company announced a freeze on jobs in its offices two weeks ago. Its workforce has actually shrunk since the start of the year, when it had 1.62 million people employed full-time or part-time.
Notably, Amazon shares are down more than 40% in 2022 so far, after hitting record highs during the pandemic.
Snapchat is losing 20% of its workforce
As for “Snapchat”, which is one of the first companies to start cutting its workforce, it laid off 20% of its employees at the end of August this year, causing nearly a thousand employees to lose their jobs.
Interestingly, the company has had a tough year financially, as its revenue and profit declined in the second quarter of this year.
Snapchat has lost nearly 80% of its value since the start of this year. The company said last May it would slow hiring to cut costs, then filed lower profits for the second quarter, noting it did not expect third-quarter results.
