Over 120,000 Tech Job Cuts Across World

It’s dark days for the tech sector with Amazon joining the list of tech goliaths letting go of people. Reports say the Jeff Bezos-owned company will lay off as many as 10,000 employees. While the contagion has not yet spread to Indian companies, the desi start-up eco-system has been hit hard. It is the largest private sector employer in the world… third only to the US department of defence and the Chinese army. With more than 20 lakh employees, Amazon could populate the entire city of Nagpur. However, according to reports Amazon.com is planning to lay off around 10,000 employees in corporate and technology roles beginning this week. The cuts would represent about 3% of Amazon's corporate staff. The online retailer plans to eliminate jobs in its devices organization, which makes voice-controlled "Alexa" gadgets and home-security cameras, as well as in its human resources and retail divisions. The news follows a wave of layoffs across the technology sector, which is wary of recession after years of rapid hiring. Just last week, Facebook parent Meta Platforms said it would cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce, to rein in costs. The post-Elon Musk Twitter has fired more than half its employees along with 5,000 contract workers. The entire tech sector has been hit by the global economic slowdown. Even the lucrative holiday season in the US has not helped sales. Analysts see tighter shopping budgets as households wrestle with high inflation and energy costs. Even giants like Apple, Microsoft and Snap are feeling the squeeze and have cut back on hiring plans. The Indian IT sector, which has a large part of its earnings from outside India, is also feeling the heat but has not entered the meltdown stage yet. The start-ups, however, are shedding jobs. The list includes Byju’s, Unacademy, Vedantu, Cars24 and Ola. Ryan Roslansky, CEO of LinkedIn, has said that there will be a hiring freeze across various verticals of the company. “We haven't announced ... any kind of layoffs. We have put ourselves inside of a hiring freeze right now for various parts of the company. But again, like every other leader, we're just continuing to navigate the global strategy that we need to keep the company going to create this platform.” Microsoft-owned LinkedIn also sees a silver lining in this entire process of layoffs. Roslansky is of the opinion that employees are turning to their platform to look for new and better opportunities and even upskill themselves for better prospects.