Global technology companies laid off about 32 thousand employees in the first month of 2024, Bloomberg writes, citing data from the founder of the Layoffs.fyi service.
Recently, Snap Inc. announced staff reductions. (up to 10% of employees or 540 people), Okta Inc. (7% of employees, about 400 people). Layoffs are also occurring at Amazon, Meta*, Salesforce, and other major corporations.
Microsoft, in particular, after the agreement to purchase Activision Blizzard will cut 1.9 thousand employees in the games division (8% of the workforce).
According to Roger Lee, founder of the Layoffs.fy service, big players are trying to optimize staffing levels after the coronavirus pandemic.
Lee pointed to two major waves of layoffs in recent years. The first occurred in the first and second quarters of 2020 and was associated with the pandemic. The second occurred in the second quarter of 2022 and is associated with macroeconomic processes.
Lee believes that a career in the field of artificial intelligence is an important factor in building companies’ personnel policy. Tech corporations are reallocating resources to focus on AI competencies.
Recently, according to analysts, many vacancies related to the development or maintenance of artificial intelligence have appeared on the labor market. If in December there were around 2 thousand, in January the offer increased to 17.5 thousand vacancies.
However, this year the reduction in numbers has not yet reached last year’s level. In the first quarter of 2023, 167.5 thousand people lost their jobs in the technology sector, compared to 32 thousand in January of this year.
*Meta and its Facebook and Instagram members are recognized as extremist organizations whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation.
Author:
Natalia Gormaleva
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
