The global tech layoff's bloodbath has spilled over and smeared other sectors including media, fashion retail and banking as well. The human cost of this crisis affecting lakhs of employees, is visible from stories of families affected and apathy of CEOs taking vacations after firing people. Although layoffs started in late 2022, about 2,700 have lost jobs every day in the first two months of 2023.
Although almost two lakh people lost jobs in the tech sector last year, more than 1.5 lakh have been laid off in 2023 already. Their peers who are still employed, are facing pay cuts in addition to the anxiety of layoffs which are taking place abruptly. For those who have been sacked even with years of experience, options are few because of a hiring freeze across sectors.
Inflation, geopolitical tensions between the US and Russia as well as China, and a recession, are just some factors holding economic growth hostage. Apart from tech firms, CNN, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, H&M and others from different sectors are also firing thousands of people. Although India's IT sector has avoided sacking people despite being connected to global markets, startups in the country have laid off more than 22,000 people.
The layoff wave shows no signs of slowing down, as firms have taken an aggressive stance on cutting costs to increase profitability. Google even went ahead to shut down cleaning robots from its cafeterias, while one of its major investor wants it to fire 10 times the number of people it has laid off.
