The Silicone Valley Layoff Just Got Worse

LoungeJanuary 23, 2023

Layoffs have become a norm since the Pandemic as many companies resorted to downsizing their workforce in order to deal with the increased inflation and the living costs that have doubled over the years. Right before Thanksgiving, the CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, further reinforced the suspicion and confirmed the rumors that the layoff has been initiated in a bunch of departments at the company and that they would have to review their needs for staffing after the new year. This gave a clear picture of what the future looks like for tech and e-commerce companies ahead.

The CEO of Andy Jessy also released a shocking statement that revealed that the e-commerce giant is cutting out more than 18,000 jobs which is almost 200% of jobs that were previously reported. This massive layoff is now considered to be the highest number of layoffs in a tech company to take place in the recent economic recession. In the past year, Amazon held off the hiring and invested itself in major cost-cutting measures. So, while 2022 proved to be a year of great difficulty for the tech giants and the people working in this field, it seems as though 2023 is going to be even worse.

Thisisengineering/Pexels | 2023 just came with a lot of bad news for the people in the tech field

Amazon Isn’t The Only One

The layoff situation is not only being faced by the e-commerce giant instead there are multiple other companies that are resorting to cutting their staff. The Cloud computing company, Salesforce, also announced the same day as Amazon’s CEO released a statement about their layoffs, that they will also be cutting their workforce by 10%. Stitch Fix, a digital fashion platform also revealed that it plans to reduce its workforce by 20% after cutting 15% of its workers’ salaries. The video-sharing platform Vimeo joined as well and announced that it is cutting 11% of its workforce. Now, these percentages may sound insignificant but they can easily come up to thousands of people working in this field.

Kaique/Pexels | 18,000 people will lose their jobs at Amazon

The Downfall Of The Tech Industry

The tech industry was going great and during the Covid-19 Pandemic, things got even better for the companies since e-commerce began booming and it became one of the most sought-after industries. This resulted in mass hiring to meet the digital demand. However, once the Covid-19 restrictions were reduced, people began going back to their normal lives, and the general demand for e-commerce and tech decreased. Now, these companies were left with a huge workforce and reduced workload.

Now, the fears of recession and global economic instability are causing a lot of tension for policymakers as they eagerly look for ways to combat the issue. Experts believe that interest rates are going to continue to hike and that many companies in the tech industry would have no choice but to rely on laying off their employees in order to cope with the rising costs.