The significant Indian employee base of several multinational companies is facing the effect of global layoff announcements made. The perfect storm of post-pandemic moderation and upcoming recession fears has made global giants Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Meta, and Salesforce among others to sack employees, starting a wave of layoffs. 

Amazon, which employs one lakh employees in India, is said to be sacking 1,000 employees across departments, starting this month. “They are firing people in cabins, people are crying in the office, 75 per cent of my team is gone(sic),” an employee shared on Grapevine, a community app for Indian professionals. However, businessline could not independently verify the same and a questionnaire sent to company did not elicit a response. The company had announced that it will be cutting 18,000 jobs globally. 

Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs too has started sacking employees in its India offices and is expected to affect 500 people out of the 9000 it employs here. Globally, it is set to let go 6 per cent of its workforce, approximately 3,200 people. 

“Employees are being asked to go to a conference room, told they’re laid off and asked to leave immediately without being allowed to go back to their desk. Layoffs happening across teams and hierarchy,” employees wrote on Grapevine. The company in a statement had said, “Our focus now is to appropriately size the firm for the opportunities ahead of us in a challenging macroeconomic environment.”

Other tech companies carrying the global layoff wave are Microsoft, which is slashing over 10,000 jobs, Salesforce which is set to sack 10 per cent of its employee base and Meta which is cutting 11,000 jobs. Snapchat and Twitter are letting go of 20 per cent - 1,200 and 50 per cent - 7,500 employees, respectively. According to layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi, 26,061 employees have been fired by 104 companies in the tech industry, just this month. 

Vijay Sivaram, CEO, Quess IT staffing said, “This is a phase of moderation as companies look to resize workforce according to the demand, and ease cost pressures, post the surged hiring in the pandemic.” As remote work gains ground, companies that are downsizing globally may decide to increase recruiting in nations like India and the Philippines in the upcoming quarter due to vast availability of talent, he added. 

Even as layoffs take place, Indian talent will remain a strategic investment for global companies, Aditya Mishra, CEO, CIEL HR Services, said, “Global companies understand the cost advantage the Indian talent brings to the table, hence, they might evaluate options of reallocating and reassigning talent to the functional projects, going forward.”

“The tech talent although have been laid off will still have a lot of other avenues to get a job. The number of international in-house centers opening in India is on the rise, and the demand for specialised skills is still significant,” said Kamal Karanth, Co-founder of Xpheno.

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