Stripe lays off 1100 employees, while Twitter workers are expecting an email to find out whether they are being dismissed
Wave of Layoffs Covered the Tech Sector. Source: Depositphotos
The tech industry leaders are cutting costs by letting go of their excessive workforce. Payment giant Stripe has just fired 1100 employees (about 14% of its whole staff) to make amends for its recent hiring spree. Meanwhile, Twitter’s new boss Elon Musk has made all the firm’s employees expect the worst as the countdown for the job cuts is about to end.
Layoffs at Stripe and Lyft affected over 10% of their staff
Stripe CEO Patrick Collison outlined the layoffs in a note to employees. He acknowledged the company was too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth and grew operating costs too quickly. Therefore, its massive hiring spree appeared redundant as inflation, higher interest rates and reduced funding hit the sector.
Almost simultaneously, the ride-hailing provider Lyft cut 13% of its staff (700 employees) in the second round of workforce reduction. The company had previously cut 60 jobs (2% of the workers) earlier this year.
Another tech giant Amazon is neither firing yet nor taking in new staff. The behemoth announced it would freeze corporate hiring for months. “We’re facing an unusual macroeconomic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy,” explained Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon.
Twitter is ending a week of chaos and uncertainty with major job cuts
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is keeping everyone intrigued about the long-rumoured job cuts at the newly-acquired social media network Twitter. The company temporarily closed its offices and cut workers’ access to internal systems on Friday. Before that, employees received an email with a deadline set for the final decision on layoffs.
From 2019 to 2021, Twitter’s headcount grew from 4,900 to 7,500, as it invested in audience growth. Company insiders are expecting a 50% overall reduction in the workforce, representing about 3,700 employees.
Some staff have tweeted they lost access to work email and Slack channels before receiving an official notice. They had all reasons to believe this was a clear sign they were on the layoff list.
Per recent reports, people employed in engineering, ethical AI, communications, search, public policy, wellness, product and content curation departments were among those impacted by the layoffs.
The company’s communications team in India has also been reportedly laid off. In addition, the team responsible for research on Twitter algorithms was dismissed.
As for the executives, Elon Musk has immediately fired Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, Twitter’s top legal and policy executive Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett. With the new wave of layoffs, vice president of engineering Arnaud Weber also bid goodbye to his co-workers.
Moreover, about 500 employees have left the social networking platform voluntarily since Musk announced his intentions to finalize the buyout. Many of them moved to major tech companies like Google and Meta.
The total number of Twitter job cuts is yet to be revealed.
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