Microsoft, Google, Amazon, SAP, Salesforce, eBay, Unity, Discord… all of these large technology companies have announced staff cuts throughout the month of January.
The layoffs are not as massive as those that these and other companies carried out a year ago, but they show that the digital sector continues to adjust its size as a result of the impact of artificial intelligence and after the boom that the entire industry experienced during the pandemic. According to the Layoffs.fyi platform, a total of 93 technology companies have laid off 24,584 people this January around the world. These are figures that are far from the 90,000 layoffs in January of last year.
The most striking case is Microsoft, the technology company that last week exceeded $3 billion in stock market valuation and that for a few moments surpassed Apple as the company with the highest stock market valuation. At the end of last week, the firm founded by Bill Gates announced the dismissal of 8% of the workforce in its video game division, about 1,900 workers. The measure comes a few months after integrating the video game giant Activision Blizzard into its operations, with a presence in Barcelona after acquiring the local studio Digital Legends.
Cuts by the German software giant SAP, which will lay off 8,000 workers, and by the American group Salesforce, which will cut 700 jobs, have also been highlighted. Both companies have a presence in the Catalan capital through digital hubs that could be affected. The extent of the cuts has not yet been specified.
Amazon and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) also announced at the beginning of the month the layoffs of hundreds of workers in different divisions. This week, the industry awaits the release of quarterly results from Alphabet, Apple, Meta and Microsoft.
