There is no doubt that the technology sector, or rather technology companies, is going through difficult times. Every day we hear news regarding wholesale layoffs of corporate employees, the most important of which is Twitter, which laid off thousands of employees immediately following the billionaire Elon Musk acquired it.
“Twitter”, “Meta”, “Snapchat”, “Microsoft”, “Anghami”, “Amazon”… International technology companies whose employees face the same fate, “expulsion”.
Several factors led to the wave of layoffs
According to Paul Samaan, an expert in digital transformation, there are several factors that led to the wave of layoffs, the most important of which are: First, when the “Corona” pandemic spread and working life almost stopped, everyone resorted to social media and many jobs began to be done remotely, and thus the number of workers increased. Huge social media users. When life returns to normal and employees return to their jobs, the number of employees shrinks.
Secondly, the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, and fears of a nuclear war.
Third, the inflation that hit the world’s largest economies, and the economic recession.
Semaan pointed out that despite the need to take a layoff step to ensure the continuity of companies, it 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 competencies that are difficult to find.
Samaan stressed that the technology sector is not in danger, as it is a phase and it will pass, hoping that it will pass with the least possible damage.
Twitter loses 50% of its employees
Twitter’s new boss, billionaire Elon Musk, fired 50% of the 7,500-strong staff, rescinded an internal work-from-home policy and imposed long working hours, while his attempts to reform Twitter were met with chaos and delays.
Musk asked employees to choose between being “highly committed” by working long hours, or losing their jobs, saying that “only exceptional performance will count as a pass score.”
Employees were also asked to enter a link to confirm their commitment to the “new Twitter” by 5 p.m. Thursday New York time, and if they do not enter the link, they will automatically lose their jobs and receive 3 months of severance pay.
Some advertisers stopped their advertisements and campaigns on Twitter, following it was taken over by Elon Musk. Advertisers are worried regarding the site’s prospects, with concerns regarding safety, trust and the spread of misinformation.
There are two worrying factors: the first is laying off half of Twitter’s employees and letting go of most of the contractors and senior officials,
The second, offering new features, quickly and without delay, 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 taking place in the social media giant Meta, the Meta Group, which includes Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp companies, announced the layoffs of 13 percent of its employees around the world.
This ratio means that 11 thousand of the total 87 thousand employees of the Meta Group will lose their jobs.
Meta Group’s two largest platforms, Facebook and Instagram, have come under increasing pressure from rival platforms such as TikTok. Although Meta has spent billions of dollars developing the Metaverse platform – Zuckerberg’s long-term project, it is still just an idea that has not been materialized in any way.
10 thousand employees outside “Amazon”
In an unexpected move, the company “Amazon” confirmed that it had started laying off employees to face the economic crisis, and the size of the reduction constitutes ten thousand employees, which is just under one percent of the current wage block 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 periods of increased activity, especially in the end-of-year celebrations.
The company announced two weeks ago the freezing of employment in its offices. Its labor force has actually shrunk since the beginning of the year when it had 1.62 million people employed full or part time.
Notably, Amazon shares have fallen more than 40% in 2022 so far, following hitting record highs during the pandemic.
Snapchat is losing 20% of its workforce
As for “Snapchat”, which is one of the first companies that began to reduce its workforce, in late August of this year it let go of 20% of its employees, causing nearly a thousand employees to lose their jobs.
It is noteworthy that the company went through a difficult year financially, as its revenues and profits declined in the second quarter of this year.
Snapchat has lost nearly 80 percent of its value since the beginning of this year. The company said last May that it would slow hiring to cut costs, then presented lower profits for the second quarter, pointing out that it would not expect third-quarter results.
