It was last summer when Microsoft announced that, in the short term, it would carry out a restructuring of its workforce with the dismissal of 1% of its employees. Or what is the same, 18,000 of its 180,000 workers around the world. It is during this month of October when, finally, this sieve has begun.
It is not the first nor will it be the last of the Big Tech companies to announce a decrease in their number of employees. In fact, Snap has assured that it will reduce its workforce by 20%, while Meta will end 2023 with a smaller workforce than the current one, specifically with 10% fewer wage earners.
The current economic crisis and the effects derived from the years of the pandemic have been key to this decision. That has materialized in `silent dismissals’ trying not to make too many headlines in the press. In fact, it was this very week when the different outputs materialized. Affecting different divisions, including those who were technically considered untouchables. According to various publications on social networks such as Twitter or Blind, employees from the Xbox and Technology divisions have left their posts this week.
A Microsoft spokesperson explained, “Like all companies, we periodically evaluate our professionals and make the corresponding structural adjustments. We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the coming year.” In fact, in a leaked email from Zach Kramer, director of the Mission Engineering team, it is told how Microsoft is “stopping prioritizing work that was already underway (…) we must make sacrifices since resources are not unlimited and time is the most scarce of all of them”.
Nevertheless, This wave of layoffs does not mean that the big technology companies are going to stop hiring If not, they will opt for so-called precision hiring, that is, key positions for the current and future needs of companies and essential to maintain their businesses. Of course, without oversizing the templates. Companies like Meta or Google have assured that they will dismiss employees who do not reach the new levels of productivity set and necessary.
Counterpoint to the 2020 hiring wave
It should be borne in mind that, in recent years, big tech companies have maintained an almost historic wave of hiring. Only in 2020, in a context marked by confinements and the increase in the excessive consumption of technology, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Facebook (now Meta), Apple Netflix and Twitter incorporated a whopping 565,727 new employees. Amazon’s workforce, for example, grew by almost 63% in 2020 alone, Microsoft’s by 16.8%, and Salesforce contracted a total of 30,000 more workers in 2021.
Not everything is bad news marked by layoffs, a recent study by the consulting firm PwC carried out on top executives of large companies, states that 42% of them say they are going to invest more in your workforce by 2023.
