2023 began on a grim note for the tech sector as reports of layoffs happening across the industry started surfacing early this month. Across the world, tech giants, startups, and mid-size companies too started slashing roles as part of cost-cutting measures. While some CEOs took ‘full responsibility’ of the layoffs and guaranteed to provide maximum assistance possible to the impacted employees, others were not as sensitive and fired people over a cold meeting held in a conference room.
As many as 21,000 techies lost their jobs in the last 3-4 months, reports suggest. And this isn’t the end of it. Many more people are likely to be impacted by the wave of layoffs in the coming months amidst the deepening funding winter. For the uninitiated, the term ‘funding winter’ refers to a time frame during which funding startups becomes difficult.
Over 70 startups fired people recently
More than 70 startups have slashed job roles in recent months. Even the startups considered to be unicorns, like BYJU’S, OLA, OYO and Unacademy, among others, gave the pink slip to some of their employees.
As per an IANS report, the education tech sector laid off most employees. As many as 8,000 employees were impacted by layoffs in the edtech sector and 16 ed tech startups had to cut down their workforce.
Layoffs in the tech world
At the beginning of the year, Amazon slashed over 18,000 job roles and shocked people across the world. The next big waves of layoffs came with Microsoft announcing 10,000 and Google slashing over 12,000 roles. Amidst this, companies like ShareChat, Spotify, Dunzo, Swiggy, GoMechanic and even Wipro also announced layoffs.
ShareChat layoffs
On January 16, ShareChat, a Google-backed company, announced layoffs and made headlines. The social media company’s official spokesperson reportedly said, “We’ve had to take some of the most difficult and painful decisions in our history as a company and had to let go of around 20 per cent of our incredibly talented employees who have been with us in this start-up journey. As capital becomes expensive, companies need to prioritise their bets and invest in the highest-impact projects only.”
The spokesperson further added that the decision of layoffs was taken after a lot of ‘deliberation and in light of the growing market consensus that investment sentiments will remain very cautious throughout this year.” Impacted employees at ShareChat will be getting a severance package including total salary of notice period, 2 weeks salary for every year served at the company, full variable pay till December 2022 along with health insurance that will remain active till June 2023.
Dunzo layoffs
A day after ShareChat layoffs were announced, delivery platform Dunzo announced its decision to fire around 3 per cent of its workforce. The company’s CEO and Co-Founder Kabeer Biswas, while talking to CNBC-TV 18, said that the company is extending ‘the best support possible’ to help employees during this tough time. He said, “Any decision that impacts people is tough and always our last option.” The CEO added, “Whatever the numbers, these are people who chose to build their careers with Dunzo, and it is sad to have talented colleagues leave us.”