The Lay off Season is here!

In addition to the recent layoffs announced by Facebook owner Meta and Twitter, other companies such as Netflix, Salesforce, Spotify, Tencent, and others have cut tens of thousands of jobs in recent months…reports Asian Lite News

Amazon confirms more layoffs

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has warned employees that there will be more layoffs at the company in early 2023 “as leaders continue to make adjustments”.

The e-commerce giant publicly confirmed some layoffs on Wednesday and now, Jassy has said more layoffs are coming as Amazon’s annual planning process extends into the new year.

“Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organisations early in 2023,” he said in a statement late on Thursday.

“We haven’t concluded yet exactly how many other roles will be impacted (we know that there will be reductions in our Stores and PXT organisations), but each leader will communicate to their respective teams when we have the details nailed down,” Sassy added.

Amazon will prioritise communicating directly with impacted employees before making broad public or internal announcements.

“This year’s review is more difficult due to the fact that the economy remains in a challenging spot and we’ve hired rapidly the last several years,” said Jassy.

The company did not reveal the exact number of employees being hit although earlier reports put the number at 10,000 employees or 3 per cent of its workforce.

The massive job cuts have hit several divisions, especially the Alexa virtual assistant business and the Luna cloud gaming unit.

“We communicated the difficult decision to eliminate a number of positions across our Devices and Books businesses, and also announced a voluntary reduction offer for some employees in our People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organisation,” Jassy further said.

“I’ve been in this role now for about a year and a half, and without a doubt, this is the most difficult decision we’ve made during that time,” the Amazon CEO added.

Dave Limp, Senior Vice President of Devices and Services, also wrote an internal post, saying that “after a deep set of reviews, we recently decided to consolidate some teams and programmes”.

“One of the consequences of these decisions is that some roles will no longer be required,” Limp said.

Zomato joins global trend

Online food delivery platform Zomato on Saturday said it is planning to lay off nearly 3 per cent of its workforce on account of cost-cutting efforts and to turn profitable.

The decision comes after many tech giants and social media sites announced layoffs.

Zomato stated that layoffs will be based on regular performance.

“There has been a regular performance based churn of under 3 per cent of our workforce, there’s nothing more to it,” said a Zomato spokesperson.

The company currently has nearly 3,800 employees.

In May 2020, Zomato laid off about 520 of its employees, or 13 per cent of its staff, in response to a slump in business following the Covid pandemic.

Meanwhile, Zomato’s co-founder Mohit Gupta quit the organisation on Friday.

Moreover, the food delivery platform announced earlier this week that Rahul Ganjoo had ended his 5-year tenure as Head of New Initiatives.

Earlier in the month, Zomato’s Vice President for global growth Siddharth Jhawar announced his departure as well.

Carvana fires 8% of its workforce

Carvana, a US-based online used car retailer, has laid off about 1,500 employees, or 8 per cent of its workforce, as it attempts to cut costs amid weakening demand for used cars on the back of rising interest rates.

According to CNBC, company CEO Ernie Garcia stated in an internal memo that higher financing costs were causing economic headwinds.

“Today is a difficult day. The world around us has continued to get tougher and to do what is best for the business, we have to make some painful choices to adapt,” Garcia was quoted as saying.

The layoffs add to an increasing number of tech-related job cuts in the face of rising interest rates, persistent inflation, and economic downturn fears.

Carvana has also experienced rapid growth, but has made some mistakes during the coronavirus pandemic in order to capitalise on an unprecedentedly strong used vehicle market, according to the report.

The layoffs primarily affect employees in Carvana’s corporate and technology departments, as well as some operational positions where the company is “eliminating roles, locations, or shifts to match our size with the current environment”, the report added.

Employees who were affected will receive separation and severance pay, extended healthcare coverage for three months, and other benefits.

“To those impacted, I am sorry. As you all know, we made a similar decision to this one in May. It is fair to ask why this is happening again, and yet I am not sure I can answer it as clearly as you deserve,” Garcia added.

GoTo too!

Indonesia’s biggest Internet company Goto has cut 1,300 jobs, or 12 per cent of its workforce, citing efforts to reduce costs and improve finances.

According to TechCrunch, GoTo joins scores of local and global peers in its decision to cut the workforce to navigate the economic slowdown and rising interest rates.

“Achieving financial independence more quickly has a profound cost for us, because when we take a hard look at how we fundamentally need to change (business focus and ways of working), it also includes you, the people who are the backbone of this company,” GoTo Group chief executive Andre Soelistyo was quoted as saying.

“It pains me to say that, as a result of our organisational review, we have to part ways with some of you. I know you are filled with many emotions right now, pain, anger, sadness, and most of all, grief. I feel the same way,” he added.

A GoTo spokesperson told that the move is part of its growing attempts to “accelerate its progress towards becoming a truly sustainable and financially independent business, centred on its core offerings of on-demand, e-commerce and financial technology services”, according to the report.

“GoTo has been making steady progress in this area underpinned by its strategic focus on high-quality cross-platform users, reduced incentive spending, and driving deeper synergies across its ecosystem,” the spokesperson added.

In addition to the recent layoffs announced by Facebook owner Meta and Twitter, other companies such as Netflix, Salesforce, Spotify, Tencent, and others have cut tens of thousands of jobs in recent months.

Cisco in a ‘rebalancing’ move

Joining the Big Tech layoff season, networking giant Cisco is reportedly laying off over 4,000 employees, or about 5 per cent of its workforce, in a “rebalancing” act while “rightsizing certain businesses”.

According to a report in the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the move will result in approximately 4,100 jobs cut at Cisco which has a 83,000-strong workforce globally.

In its first quarter earning report (Q1 2023) this week, Cisco reported $13.6 billion in revenue, up 6 per cent year over year.

Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Cisco, did not divulge any detail on laying off employees, saying he would “be reluctant to go into a lot of detail here until we’re able to talk to them. I would say that what we’re doing is rightsizing certain businesses”.

“You can just assume that we’re going to — we’re not actually — there’s nothing that’s a lower priority, but we are rightsizing certain businesses,” he told the analysts.

Cisco Chief Financial Officer Scott Herren described the move as a “rebalancing” act.

“Don’t think of this as a headcount action that is motivated by cost savings. This really is a rebalancing. As we look across the board, there are areas that we would like to invest in more, Chuck just talked about them. Security, our move to platforms and more cloud-delivered products,” Herren said during the company’s earnings call.

He said that if we look at the number of jobs that the company has opened in the areas that it is trying to invest in, “it is just slightly lower than the number of people that we believe will be impacted”.

“We’re going to be working really hard to help match our employees to those roles to the extent there’s a skill match. So, we’re going to work really hard at that,” said the company CFO.

Cisco joins a growing list of tech companies like Meta, Twitter, Salesforce and others which have laid off thousands of employees to weather the rough macroeconomic conditions.

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