In 2022, the life of American technology companies will not be easy. Not only the stock prices of many companies have plummeted, losing several trillion US dollars in market value, but also a large number of companies have laid off employees. The only few that have not been announced are Microsoft and Google. Announced 5% layoffs worldwide, and at least 10,000 people lost their jobs.
According to people familiar with the matter, Microsoft may announce a worldwide layoff plan within days.The company is considering laying off about 5% of its workforce ahead of its earnings report on Jan. 24.Layoffs are expected to be announced before then.
According to filing documents, as of June 30 last year, Microsoft had 221,000 employees worldwide, including 122,000 in the United States and 99,000 overseas.A 5% layoff ratio means that about 11,000 Microsoft employees will lose their jobs.
It is worth mentioning that Microsoft recently announced that it will change the company’s employee vacation system to DTO discretionary vacation. American employees are no longer fixed vacations and can decide on their own.
Although this system sounds like it allows employees to take more and more free vacations, under the DTO vacation system,If Microsoft lays off employees, it does not need to give compensation. I don’t know if it is just a preparation for this.
Recently, many technology giants in the United States have started a large-scale layoff mode. Among them, Amazon plans to lay off 18,000 employees, Salesforce said it will lay off 8,000 employees, and Facebook’s parent company Meta will lay off about 11,000 employees.
Google has not yet announced major layoffs. However, Intrinsic, an industrial robot company owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, recently cut about 17% of its employees, which is also a signal.