Amazon cuts employees by 100,000, joins Netflix and Google in recession

by Martin Paris | bloomberg

With recession fears rising—and inflation, the war in Ukraine and the pandemic taking a toll—many tech companies are rethinking their staffing needs, some of them setting freezes, canceling offers. And making rounds of layoffs.

Amazon.com Inc. The company was the latest to discuss its belt-tightening efforts this week. During its quarterly earnings call on Thursday, the e-commerce giant said it was adding jobs at its slowest rate since 2019. After relying on it to lay off its employees, Amazon now has about 100,000 fewer employees than it did last quarter. Take a look at the companies that tap the brakes.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., is slowing down its hiring efforts. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told employees this month that — although the business added 10,000 Googlers in the second quarter — it would slow hiring for the rest of the year and prioritize engineering and technical talent. “Like all companies, we are not immune from economic headwinds,” he said. The hiring pause is part of that slowdown, Google said, “to enable teams to prioritize their roles and work out hiring plans for the rest of the year.” It had about 164,000 employees at the end of March.

Amazon said in April that it was scrapped and needed to cut back after ramping up during the pandemic. Brian Olsavsky, Chief Financial Officer, said at the time, “As the variance decreased in the second half of the quarter and employees returned from vacation, we quickly replaced fewer employees from being overstaffed, resulting in reduced productivity.” Amazon is subleasing some warehouse space and has halted development of facilities for office workers, saying it needs more time to figure out how much space employees will need for hybrid work. The company now has 1.52 million full and part-time employees and is still the largest employer in the tech world, despite the reduction in headcount.

According to people familiar with the matter, Apple Inc. is planning to increase hiring and spending in some divisions next year to deal with a potential economic slowdown. But it’s not a company-wide policy, and the iPhone maker is still going ahead with an aggressive product-release schedule. Apple had 154,000 employees in September, when its last fiscal year ended.

The Carvana Company, an online used car retailer, laid off 2,500 people, about 12% of its workforce, in May. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in an unusual move, the executive team will forfeit salaries for the rest of the year, which were let go. The company had more than 21,000 full-time and part-time employees at the end of last year.

One cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase Global Inc., told employees it was cutting 18% of its workforce in June to prepare for the economic downturn. It also turned down job offers. “It looks like we’re entering a recession after a 10+ year economic boom,” CEO Brian Armstrong said in a blog post. “While it is hard to predict the economy or the markets, we always plan for the worst so that we can operate business through any environment,” he said. The company ended the quarter with about 5,000 employees.

According to a filing last month, Compass Inc., a real estate brokerage platform, is terminating 450 positions, about 10% of its workforce. The company had about 5,000 employees at the end of 2021.

Gemini Trust Company, a cryptocurrency exchange founded by bitcoin billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, announced a 10% staff reduction in June. TechCrunch reported that the company laid off another 7% on July 18 and said a leaked plan suggests it wants to cut 15% of the total, bringing it from 950 employees to 800 employees.

Grocery delivery app GoPuff is laying off 10% of its workforce and closing dozens of warehouses. About 1,500 staff members will be affected by the cuts—a mix of corporate and warehouse employees.

Lyft Inc. told employees it was reining in hiring after its stock declined sharply in May. The company on July 20 announced plans to shut down its car-rental business and cut about 60 jobs. Lyft had about 4,500 employees in 2021. Meanwhile, Archrival Uber Technologies Inc. more excited. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg in June that his company was “recession resistant” and had no plans for layoffs.

Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms Inc. scaled down plans to hire engineers by at least 30%. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees he was anticipating the worst recession in recent history. The company had over 77,800 employees at the end of March.

Microsoft Corp. U.S. told employees in May that it was slowing hiring across Windows, Office and team groups as it prepared for economic instability. The company had 181,000 employees in 2021. Recently, the software maker cut some jobs as part of the restructuring—less than 1% of the total. On July 20, the company said it had begun eliminating several job openings — a freeze that would last indefinitely.

Netflix Inc., the streaming giant, has had several rounds of highly publicized layoffs since reporting a loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter. In April, it began to scale down some marketing initiatives, then cut 150 employees in May and 300 in June. Last quarter, it reported $70 million in severance expenses and shed an additional 970,000 customers. Netflix had 11,300 employees in 2021.

Niantic Inc., the maker of the Pokémon Go video game, fired 8% of its team in June. CEO John Hanke told employees in an email that it was an effort to streamline operations and set the company up to weather economic storms. Niantic had about 800 employees at the end of last year.

OpenSea, an NFT marketplace, laid off 20% of its workforce on July 14. CEO Devin Finzer tweeted, “We have entered an unprecedented combination of crypto winter and broader macroeconomic volatility, and we need to prepare the company for the prospect of a prolonged recession.”

Peloton Interactive Inc. announced plans to cut about 2,800 jobs globally, about 20% of its corporate roles, as part of a surprise shake-up in February that lost its CEO John Foley and several executive team members. left the post. In 2021, the company reported having approximately 9,000 employees.

Another real estate brokerage Redfin Corp cut its workforce by 8% in June. “We don’t have enough work for our agents and support staff,” CEO Glenn Kellman wrote in a blog post, noting that May demand was 17% lower than estimates and that he expected the company to grow more during the housing downturn. Will grow more slowly.Redfin had about 6,500 employees at the end of last year.

Robinhood Markets Inc., the online brokerage, laid off 9% of its workforce in April. It had about 3,800 employees at the end of last year and lost more than $2 billion since going public last July.

Rivian Automotive Inc. plans to cut hundreds of non-manufacturing jobs and teams with duplicate tasks. The Southern California electric-vehicle maker, which has more than 14,000 employees, could cut the total by about 5%. In a memo to employees, CEO RJ Scaring said, “We will always focus on growth; however, Rivian is not immune to the current economic conditions and we need to ensure that we can continue to grow.”

Salesforce Inc., the cloud computing platform, is reducing hiring and travel expenses, according to a leaked memo reported by Insider in May. It had about 78,000 employees as of the end of April.

Personal photo item maker Shutterfly laid off 100 employees in June, CEO Hilary Schneider told Bloomberg. The company, which has 7,000 employees, is making recruitment adjustments to address economic uncertainty. “Clearly we are going through a period of economic crisis on a global scale,” she said. “When you look at the supply chain, it’s definitely driving up inflation and impacting consumer confidence.”

Shopify Inc., an e-commerce platform, is laying off 1,000 employees, 10% of its workforce, CEO Toby Lutke said in a letter to employees dated July 26. The jobs affected included recruitment, support and sales. The company is offering 16 weeks of severance, career coaching, a laptop and Internet allowance, home-office furniture, and a free Shopify account for those who want to launch their own storefront. According to its website, Shopify has 10,000 employees.

Spotify Technology SA, the audio service, is cutting employee growth by about 25% to adjust for macroeconomic factors, CEO Daniel Eck said in a note to employees in June. “I believe that only the insane survive,” he said on a conference call this week. “And we’re preparing as if things could get worse, but it’s hard to be anything but optimistic about what I’m currently seeing.” According to its website, Spotify has over 6,500 employees.

Stitch Fix, an online personal styling service, said in June that it was pursuing a 15% reduction in salaried positions — about 4% of its workforce — coming from non-technology corporate jobs and styling leadership roles. with a majority. It is facing higher spending and weak demand. According to its website, the company has 8,900 employees.

Electric-vehicle maker Tesla Inc. cut 200 Autopilot employees in June, closing a facility in San Mateo, Calif. CEO Elon Musk previously said layoffs would be necessary in an increasingly volatile economic environment. In an interview with Bloomberg, he said that around 10% of salaried workers would lose their jobs in the next three months, although the total workforce could be higher in a year. The company had 100,000 employees globally at the end of last year.

Tonal Systems Inc., the home fitness startup backed by sports celebrities Steph Curry and Serena Williams, laid off 35% of its 750 employees on July 13, according to CNBC.

Twitter Inc. began a hiring freeze in May and began turning down job offers, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg, amid uncertainty surrounding the company’s acquisition of Elon Musk. Recently, it said it would leave office space behind, but without job cuts. The company had 7,500 employees in 2021.

Unity Software Inc., which makes a video-game engine, surprised employees in June when it sent pink slips to 200 of its 5,900 employees, representing 4% of its workforce. According to Kotaku, its CEO had assured employees that there would be no layoffs.

Video sharing platform Vimeo cut the company by 6% in July. CEO Anjali Sood said in a blog post that it has slowed hiring since the beginning of the year. “The reality is that the challenging economic conditions around us have impacted our business. We must recognize that these conditions will continue to be challenging in the near future, and we are not immune from it. So while we have deliberately taken action in other spending areas, it has become clear that we also need to look at our largest areas of investment, our team,” Sood said.

Online furniture retailer Wayfair Inc. introduced a 90-day hiring freeze in May. As of March, the company had 18,000 employees.

Fitness wearables startup, Hoop Inc., laid off 15% on July 22 and now has about 550 employees, according to a company statement reported by the Boston Globe.

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