Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on July 29, 2022
(Reuters) – Technology companies, crypto exchanges and financial firms are cutting jobs and slowing hiring as global economic growth slows due to higher interest rates, red-hot inflation and an energy crisis in Europe.
In a sign of a tough second half of the year, growth in the world’s largest economy, the United States, shrank for the second straight quarter, while in the euro zone business growth slowed sharply in June due to rising cost of living.
LAYOFFS:
Company name Date Layoffs impact Commentary
Alibaba Group March 16 About 39,000 staff Started firing employees in February. It discussed job
cuts with several business units that month and left it to
them to make specific plans, a source told Reuters.
Tencent Holdings March 16 10%-15% headcount In an internal meeting at Tencent at the end of 2021, CEO
Pony Ma told staff the company should prepare for a
“winter”, two sources told Reuters.
Tesla Inc June 3 Roughly 10% in “I have a super bad feeling about the economy,” CEO Elon
salaried staff Musk said in emails seen by Reuters.
JPMorgan Chase & June 22 Over 1,000 “Our staffing decision this week was a result of cyclical
Co employees changes in the mortgage market,” a spokesperson said.
Shopify Inc July 26 10% of its “Ultimately, placing this bet was my call to make and I
workforce got this wrong,” CEO Tobi Lutke said, referring to a bet
on post-pandemic growth in online shopping that went sour.
Netflix May 17 150 jobs “While we continue to invest significantly in
300 the business, we made these adjustments so that our costs
June 23 jobs are growing in line with our slower revenue growth,” the
company said.
Coinbase Global June 14 1,100 jobs “We appear to be entering a recession after a 10+ year
Inc economic boom. A recession could lead to another crypto
winter, and could last for an extended period,” CEO Brian
Armstrong said.
OpenSea July 14 20% of “The reality is that we have entered an unprecedented
its workforce combination of a crypto winter and broad macroeconomic
instability, and we need to prepare the company for the
possibility of a prolonged downturn,” CEO Devin Finzer
said.
Klarna May 23 10% of its “Since then (2021), we have seen a tragic and unnecessary
workforce war in Ukraine unfold, a shift in consumer sentiment, a
steep increase in inflation, a highly volatile stock
market and a likely recession,” CEO Sebastian
Siemiatkowski said.
Robinhood April 26 9% of its
Markets Inc full-time
employees
HIRING FREEZES:
Company name Date Action taken Commentary
Apple Inc July 18 To slow hiring, The decision stems from a move to be more careful during
spending next year uncertain times, though it is not a company-wide policy,
in some units Bloomberg News reported, citing sources.
Meta Platforms June 30 Cut plans to hire “If I had to bet, I’d say that this might be one of the
Inc engineers by at worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history,” CEO
least 30% to Mark Zuckerberg told workers in a weekly employee Q&A
~6,000-7,000 session, audio of which was heard by Reuters.
Twitter Inc May 12 To pause most CEO Parag Agrawal, in a memo to employees seen by Reuters,
hiring, review attributed the decision in part to a lack of confidence in
existing job Twitter’s ability to reach aggressive growth targets it had
offers to see if set in 2020.
any “should be
pulled back”
Uber May 9 To scale back “We will treat hiring as a privilege and be deliberate
Technologies Inc hiring, reduce about when and where we add headcount,” CEO Dara
spending on Khosrowshahi said in a letter seen by Reuters.
marketing,
incentives
Snap Inc May 23 To slow hiring and “We continue to face rising inflation and interest rates,
push some planned supply chain shortages and labor disruptions, platform
hiring to 2023 policy changes, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and
more,” CEO Evan Spiegel said in a memo to employees.
Amazon.com Inc July 28 Company is
questioning its
hiring plans,
likely will not
hire at same pace
as in previous
years
Intel Corp June 8 Froze hiring in
the division
responsible for PC
desktop and laptop
chips
Source: Company filings, media reports
(Compiled by Chavi Mehta, Tiyashi Datta and Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
Explore more articles in the Top Stories category
