As the Information Technology industry struggles with its challenges, major tech giants have been on a layoff spree in March this year. The downsizing of the company size is mostly being attributed to “cost-cutting” .
Big names in the tech industry such as Apple, Dell, and Ericsson have trimmed their workforce citing different reasons. While Apple reportedly sacked its team of engineers because of a job not well done, Ericsson said the demand of 5G equipment had declined.
Here’s a list tech layoffs in March and why were these job cuts made:
Layoffs at Apple: Apple Inc was trying to develop microLED displays for the future models of Apple Watches internally. However, according to Bloomberg, the efforts were futile and because of it the tech giant re-organised its display engineering teams while laying off dozens of employees across Asia and United States.
Layoffs at Dell: Dell had said that it is cutting its workforce as a part of broader cost-cutting measure. The layoff, which reportedly took away nearly 6,000 jobs, came at a time when the demand for the Dell PCs slowed down causing an 11% drop in the Q4 revenue.
Layoffs at Ericsson: Earlier this month, Ericsson said that it will cut 1,200 jobs in Sweden because the demand for 5G network equipment has slowed down. The telecom giant is bracing for a “challenging mobile networks market” this year, and therefore the layoffs are a part of its cost-saving measure for 2024.
Layoffs at Turnitin: Turnitin, a plagiarism detection tech firm, laid off around 15 people earlier this year, TechCrunch reported. Company’s CEO Chris Caren said last year that Artificial Intelligence would enable Turnitin to reduce its engineering headcount by 20 per cent within 18 months.
Layoffs at Zee: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd on Friday said it is overhauling its technology and innovation centre, which includes a pruning of expenses by 50 per cent and a restructuring of its team on the advice of a new management oversight panel.
Layoffs at IBM: International Business Machines Corp (IBM) in March announced job cuts in its marketing and communication divison, CNBC reported. However, IBM gave no specific number of employees who would lose their jobs in the process. Jonathan Adashek, the chief communications officer at IBM announced the layoffs in a seven-minute meeting, the report added.
As many as 56,858 tech jobs have been cut in 2024, reported Layoffs.fyi, a startup that has been tracking job cuts in the industry since the pandemic.
In February, Layoffs.fyi founder Roger Lee, in an email wrote that this year, “tech companies are still trying to correct for their over-hiring during the pandemic surge.”
“Given that the high interest-rate environment and tech downturn have both lasted longer than initially expected,” he had added.
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Published: 30 Mar 2024, 03:27 PM IST