This entry I’ve copied from my Notion. That’s the reason it belongs to 2023, even though I started this blog in August 2024.

What follows next is the exact (with grammar and syntax fixed) entry from Notion.

So the top tech companies around the world are firing people left and right. Below figures might not be accurate (as I don’t have time to pull in actual sources now), but this is what happened:

  1. Amazon fired over 18K employees worldwide.
  2. Netflix laid off about 300 last year.
  3. Google and Microsoft laid off about 10K each.
  4. Facebook (Meta) has been struggling with the metaverse and fired about 11K employees.
  5. There are lots of other lesser-known companies like my own (SmartNews), which fired 40% of its workforce, along with Shopify, Salesforce, and Goldman Sachs.

Everyone is blaming over-hiring during 2020/2021 due to economic tailwinds and 2022 headwinds in the likely fear of a recession. While some companies are definitely struggling economically, others like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and similar firms, which had huge profits and are still growing significantly, are just using the recession and weak economy as an excuse to trim their workforce.

All this hiring and firing season added tailwind and headwind to my vocabulary.