In 2022, the US dollar reached the highest level of the last two decades. And at the beginning of 2023, this does not look like it will change because the appreciation of the dollar occurred in the midst of a rapid increase in interest rates; a measure that central banks took to try to control inflation, and that they maintain today.
Due Tech companies around the world are facing an economic slowdown —for example, due to advertiser budget cuts—, which forces them to reduce costs. One of the usual ways to do this is lay off employees, at the same time as hiring freezes.
An emblematic example is that of Amazon, which announced the largest reduction plan among those who are already known in the technology sector in the United States.
The e-commerce giant will cut more than 18,000 jobsciting an uncertain economy.
By the way, the executive director of the American group, Andy Jassy, ​​assured that the company’s management is “deeply aware” that these job eliminations are difficult for people, so they are working to “support those affected” . “We offer them packages that include severance pay, temporary health insurance and external help to find a job”he claimed.
But Amazon is not the only one. Last November, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, first announced the layoff of employees, a total of 11,000, which corresponds to approximately 13% of its collaborators. Hiring within the group is also frozen until the end of March 2023.
This responds to the disappointing quarterly results that Meta had, with a drop in its turnover and profitsas well as a stagnation in the number of users. This balance sheet accelerated the decline of the company’s stock, which has lost a total of more than 70% since the beginning of the year on the Nasdaq.
Since Apple and Microsoft also announced that their hiring is on hold “until well into 2023.”
BesidesTwitter — bought in October by mogul Elon Musk — laid off half of its 7,500 employees.
“Unfortunately there is no other option when companies lose more than US$4 million per day”Musk said in his first message on the subject.
And at the end of August, Snap, the parent company of the Snapchat app, it eliminated around 20% of its staffmore than 1,200 employees.
The technology crisis
Nasdaq crashed after the big winners of the pandemic will begin to suffer the consequences of the current economic situation. And this stock market crash cost the world’s richest people billions of dollars.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the chief executive of Amazon’s board of directors, Jeff Bezos lost more than $86 billion in 2022.
The plummeting price of Meta, which has lost 66% in market value since the beginning of the year, dropped Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune to $44.4 billion.
The current owner of Twitter, Elon Musk lost $140 billion.
With information from AFP
