(TheConservativeTimes.org) – Tech companies have been hitting new market highs even amid tons of layoffs that have been taking place recently. Alphabet and Meta both reached a new pinnacle and Microsoft ran past a $3 trillion in market cap. This is all coming right before these tech giants will be looking into their quarterly reports and earnings.
However, this also comes at a time when we’ve seen many of these companies lay off thousands of their employees and continually downsize their business. In January so far this year, over 20,000 workers have been laid off from 85 different tech companies. The highest number of layoffs in one month in recent times was in March when about 38,000 people were let go.
Microsoft is among the companies facing these layoffs as they just cut 1,900 people from their gaming division, as well as Brex who laid off 20% of its entire staff. Even eBay cut out 9% of their employees and 1,000 jobs.
eBay’s CEO expressed the need for cuts by saying “We need to better organize our teams for speed — allowing us to be more nimble, bring like-work together, and help us make decisions more quickly.”
Another tech company facing cuts is the tech giant Google, who confirmed that they would cut hundreds of jobs across the company, and Amazon who laid off many of its employees who worked within their Prime Video, MHM Studios, Twitch, and Audible divisions. Unity is cutting 25% of its workforce and Discord will be cutting 17% of its workforce.
We saw an increase in layoffs last January as well when tech companies cut nearly 90,000 jobs. There are a few reasons why companies may begin doing this and one reason is that they’ve realized they can do more, with fewer people.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in 2023 that it was the “year of efficiency” and many mentioned that combining like-work will help to improve efficiency, but this means cutting jobs.
Some experts think that these technology businesses are cutting jobs because they are preparing for advancements with AI. They may be thinking that needing human workers won’t be as necessary as artificial intelligence continues to develop and improve.
Art Zeile, CEO of DHI group, said “These companies, in general, are reducing numbers of employees associated with product lines or divisions that have not been successful because they want to reposition themselves for AI.”
Some companies are just cutting jobs and labor because they need to address overlap to save money and cut spending. Regardless of the reasoning, we can expect to see these layoffs continue as these businesses reassess their workforce.
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