More and more people are losing their jobs in the IT sector but Headcount Isn’t Moving at All
Despite the layoffs, the workforces of some of the largest US tech companies have grown substantially. According to year-end filings, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Netflix all had 50% more employees than before the outbreak. Meta Platforms isn’t far behind either, and according to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com has almost quadrupled its workforce since 2019.
These businesses have announced plans to lay off around 70,000 workers since the latter half of 2022. The most recent round of layoffs have been more than compensated for by ongoing hiring, mergers, and recruitment binges.
Look at Microsoft. The software behemoth had previously pledged to eliminate 11,370 positions over three layoff announcements last year, and in January it announced plans to remove 1,900 positions in its videogame division.
After Activision Blizzard’s October acquisition by Microsoft, the company announced layoffs in January affecting its roughly 13,000 employees. The most recent revealed employment data from Microsoft did not include Activision workers.
With 101,000 employees as of the end of the fiscal year, up over 70% from 2019, the majority of Microsoft’s headcount expansion seems to have occurred outside the United States. Outside of Microsoft’s public filings, a representative from the software giant declined to comment.
Alphabet too had a hiring boom. With an increase of almost 63,000 from 2019, the parent business of Google employed 182,502 individuals by the end of last year.
Included in that rise are the approximately 8,000 layoffs that occurred at Alphabet last year. Alphabet said in early 2023 that it would be laying off around 12,000 workers across several departments, including Google.
The goal of the company’s efforts to streamline operations and concentrate resources on its most important product categories, according to an Alphabet spokesperson, is to increase efficiency.
About 161,000 workers were employed by Apple as of the conclusion of the fiscal year in September, a modest decrease from the previous year. Compared to four years ago, that number was up over 24,000. When compared to other major IT businesses, Apple has been rather silent on the subject of high-profile layoffs. They decided to abandon its ambitions to manufacture electric cars this week, which would have redirected some employment but could have led to layoffs for others.
The parent firm of Facebook, Meta, cut 19,000 jobs last year, or around 22% of the workforce. In March of last year, after the news of 10,000 job layoffs in November of 2022, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed plans for a “year of efficiency” at the corporation.
By the end of 2023, the company’s workforce had grown by almost 50% compared to the previous year. A representative from Meta chose not to comment.
Amazon has added 727,000 workers since 2019, which is the largest increase in the labor force. Despite announcing a 27,000 job decrease in 2023, it has nearly increased its staff in that time.
The majority of Amazon’s employees are warehouse workers, and this demographic has been the primary target of layoffs in industries as diverse as cloud computing, online shoe retailer Zappos, MGM Studios, and the Twitch streaming service.
The majority of our companies increased their workforce in the years preceding this one, according to a statement sent to staff by CEO Andy Jassy in March 2023. “However, we have decided to be more efficient with our spending and staffing levels due to the uncertain economy in which we operate and the uncertainty that exists going forward.”
According to an Amazon representative, the corporation has persisted in recruiting in some regions in accordance with its strategic objectives.
Since 2019, all six organizations have seen significant growth in other areas as well, with revenue increasing at a higher rate than staff additions in each instance.
In comparison to Meta and Alphabet, Amazon’s sales have more than quadrupled since 2019. With sales increase of 47% during the four-year period, Apple lagged behind the group.
All of the businesses saw an increase in revenue per employee in 2023 compared to the year before the epidemic.
