From Google to Amazon, these global tech companies hitting brakes on hiring
2 min read 02 Aug 2022, 09:45 PM ISTAmazon.com said it’s been adding jobs at the slowest rate since 2019. After relying on attrition to winnow its staff, Amazon now has about 100,000 fewer employees than in the previous quarter
PremiumWith the fear of recession looms, the prolonged war between Russia and Ukraine, and the lingering pandemic taking a toll-several global technology company have begun to pause on hiring. The tech giants are rescinding offers and making rounds of layoffs.
Here's a look at the companies tapping the brakes:
1. Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, has been decelerating its recruiting efforts. This month, Sundar Pichai said that although the business added 10,000 Googlers in the second quarter—it will be slowing the pace of hiring for the rest of the year. The hiring pause is part of that slowdown, Google said, “to enable teams to prioritize their roles and hiring plans for the rest of the year." It had nearly 164,000 employees at the end of March.
2. Amazon.com said it’s been adding jobs at the slowest rate since 2019. After relying on attrition to winnow its staff, Amazon now has about 100,000 fewer employees than in the previous quarter. Besides, the eCommerce platform has been subleasing some warehouse space and paused the development of facilities meant for office workers, saying it needed more time to figure out how much space employees will require for hybrid work. The company has 1.52 million full- and part-time workers and is still the largest employer in the tech world, despite the reduction in headcount.
3. iPhone maker Apple Inc is also planning to slow hiring and spending at some divisions next year to cope with a potential economic recession. Apple had 154,000 employees in September when its last fiscal year ended.
4. Meta Platforms Inc., the parent of Facebook, slashed plans to hire engineers by at least 30%. The company had more than 77,800 employees at the end of March this year.
5. Microsoft Corp also told workers in May that it was slowing down hiring in the Windows, Office, and Teams groups. On July 20, the company said it began eliminating many job openings—a freeze that will last indefinitely.
6. Streaming platform Netflix Inc has had several rounds of highly publicized layoffs since it reported the loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter. Netflix had 11,300 employees in 2021.
7. Tesla Inc., the electric-vehicle maker, cut 200 autopilot workers as it closed a facility in San Mateo, California, in June. CEO Elon Musk said earlier that layoffs would be necessary for a volatile market. The company had 100,000 employees globally at the end of last year.
8. Twitter Inc. initiated a hiring freeze and began rescinding job offers in May, amid uncertainty surrounding Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company. The company had 7,500 employees in 2021.
