Fired employees, the “four giants” of technology earned hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization

Contract compensation costs were revealed in the revenue reports of the four US technology giants. Although the amount to spend is not small, but this is part of their restructuring efforts.

Previously, the group announced that it had cut 50,000 jobs, opening the trend of staff reduction after more than a decade of heavy spending to focus on revenue growth.

According to Layoff.fyi, the tracking site technology dataSince the beginning of last year, nearly 250,000 employees have been laid off. Most recently, software group Okta laid off 300 employees, data analytics company Splunk cut 325, and photo-sharing social network Pinterest announced 150 layoffs.

Further back, last November, Meta announced the layoff of 11,000 employees, shrinking office space and data centers. At its latest quarterly earnings report, Facebook’s parent company detailed a $4.6 billion restructuring charge. In which, the cost of severance compensation is up to 975 million USD and an additional 1 billion USD is expected to be related to the reduction of office space in 2023.

Meanwhile, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said it would eliminate 18,000 positions. The online retailer’s chief financial officer, Brian Olsavsky, said that the company spent $640 million on layoffs in the fourth quarter of 2022, as well as a $720 million loss in real estate abandonment, mainly because Stop opening new stores.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is cutting 12,000 jobs and is expected to incur compensation costs of $1.9 billion to $2.3 billion, which will reflect in current quarter revenue. According to calculations, the highest severance cost is about 191,000 USD/person, not including 500 million USD in office reorganization fee. Even so, Alphabet’s chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, said the company continues to “recruit in priority areas”.

Come to Microsoftthe move to lay off 10,000 employees cost the company $ 1.2 billion in the last 3 months of 2022, of which $ 800 million is for termination benefits.

More gain than loss

Since officially laying off employees, businesses have collectively added more than $800 billion to their market capitalization. Meta, the struggling company of the Big Tech quartet, has nearly doubled in value since last November, when it announced details of its layoff plan.

The process of lean restructuring in the face of macroeconomic pressure is in stark contrast to the recruitment boom of the pandemic period. Back then, employee numbers grew rapidly at tech companies that were racing to meet growing demand for digital products and services.

Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, said that while the savings can be realized through gradually reducing costs, the move to restructure the staffing scale of large technology companies has been marketed. positive reception.

“The tech giants have spent money like ’80s rock stars over the last 4-5 years. Now they seem more mature.”Ives commented.

Now, Apple remains the only major tech company that hasn’t announced any job cuts or cost-savings program, despite its latest quarterly revenue report that fell for the first time in 3.5 years. This.

The Vinh (According to FT)