Western IT giants are trying to save the business by laying off employees during the crisis
In 2022, the global high-tech sector lost more than 100,000 jobs. This figure is 6.5 times higher than the previous year and is a record since the beginning of the century.
This was reported by the FBA “Economy Today”.
In 2023, the trend only gained momentum: for example, Microsoft, Amazon and Google decided to say goodbye to 40,000 employees. The 2022 crisis caught the tech giants by surprise—neither executives nor investors expected consumers to suddenly run out of money for endless shopping on marketplaces and movie platforms. The world’s largest online auction platform eBay also plans to lay off about 500 employees, or 4% of the company’s staff.
“In general, there is nothing surprising in what is happening in the Western IT market: last year’s crisis did not even slow down the growth of the world’s largest economies, but simply stopped it. Geopolitical tensions, anti-Russian sanctions, the refusal of Russian gas and hyperinflation in Western countries have led to a decrease in purchasing power among the population. And if today a conditional European is thinking about how to buy groceries for a month and at the same time pay for heating, then he obviously will not renew his Netflix subscription or buy a new iPhone. Everything is quite natural, ”said Alexei Artyukhov, Candidate of Economic Sciences, in an interview with the publication.
Western experts consider layoffs a justified measure to reduce the costs of IT companies, but our speaker does not agree with their strategy. According to Artyukhov, the reduction of a number of employees will in no way help the market giants to stay afloat – the costs of this will not become lower in a global sense.
“Let’s say that Microsoft, Amazon and Google IT people get good money, but is it commensurate with the shortages that companies are facing? It seems to me that no. Well, they will fire 50 thousand people who, conditionally, received five thousand dollars a month. Well, this will help save $3 billion a year, and then what? It’s just that no one wants to admit that the United States is to blame for the crisis, because of which ordinary people and good specialists are now forced to suffer. Companies now have two paths: either somehow resist the system, or say goodbye to money and their once-developed enterprises. Reductions will not help, I am convinced of this,” adds Artyukhov.
