Nearly 200,000 tech employees fired globally in 2023; more layoffs expected

Facebook's parent Meta on Wednesday has begun with the second round of layoffs. The year is proving particularly challenging for the IT industry as the layoffs have reached unprecedented levels.

Meta in its second round of layoffs plans to fire 10,000 employees across all platforms.

According to recent data from layoff.fyi, a layoff tracker website, 702 companies have laid off 199,047 employees in 2023 so far worldwide.

An ETNow report stated that several IT companies announced the laying off process as part of their cost-cutting measure to survive amidst challenging times. It further said that the layoffs which started over a year ago have now impacted thousands of employees across the world.

Earlier in January 2023, close to 100,000 employees were fired by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce, among others.

From big tech companies to startups, the tech industry is witnessing a rough patch. The report said that several companies like Meta, BT, Vodafone, and many others have announced their plans to lay off more employees in the upcoming months. Reports suggest that BT Group, which is a prominent telecom company in the UK has revealed its plan to reduce its workforce by 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade. Vodafone, on the other hand, has plans to reduce its workforce by 11,000 jobs over the course of the next three years.

In 2022, a total of 161,000 employees were laid off by 1,046 companies, the report stated. It further said that from 2022 till May 2023, a total of 360,000 tech employees have been handed over pink slips.

Amazon India has also laid off nearly 400-500 employees from its cloud division AWS as well as its HR support department this month.

The report also suggests that Apple Inc is the only tech giant that has managed to avoid these mass layoffs so far.