Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Beijing time on the morning of March 24, it is reported that from Europe and the United States to Asia, from Microsoft, Google, to Amazon, SAP, the global technology giants have laid off tens of thousands of people this year.

But surprisingly, the vast majority of these companies are still profitable.

According to a survey by Jefferies, a financial services company, "the layoffs are due to overhiring during the epidemic and growth expectations are lower than previously forecast."

With interest rates rising and inflation high in the United States, consumers are also cutting back in an uncertain global economic environment. As a result, Jefferies analysts conclude that companies "need to reduce staff and regain operational efficiency through the number of employees that match current demand trends".

Rising interest rates have pushed up the cost of capital and forced companies to cut back on staff spending. "this is especially true for startups, which have significantly increased their headcount because of low-cost capital," Bank of America's global research division wrote in a research report. "

Here are a few of the global tech giants that, while still making handsome profits, are relentless in laying off staff:

Microsoft made a net profit of $16.4 billion for the quarter ended December 31, down 8 per cent from a year ago. Cloud computing has become an important growth engine, with Microsoft's cloud business revenue reaching $27.1 billion, up 22% from a year earlier.

Satya Nadella, the company's CEO, said in its annual report that Microsoft had achieved "record performance" in the 2022 fiscal year ending June 30, despite a "volatile environment".

"We achieved $198 billion in revenue and $83 billion in operating profit," he said in his annual report for fiscal 2022. Microsoft's annual revenue exceeded $100 billion for the first time. "

Still, Microsoft announced in January that it would cut 10, 000 jobs in response to a slowdown in revenue growth.

AlphabetAlphabet, Google's parent company, announced 12000 job cuts in January.

The company's fourth-quarter earnings and revenue fell short of expectations, but achieved 1 per cent year-on-year revenue growth in the quarter to December.

Ruth Porat, its CFO, said on an earnings call that Alphabet added 3455 employees in the quarter, most of them in technical positions.

She said in an interview with the media that the company intends to slow down recruitment in order to pursue longer-term profit growth.

"We have experienced rapid growth over the past two years," Sandal Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, wrote in a memo to employees. "We have recruited a large number of employees to adapt to and promote this growth, but the economic situation we are facing has changed."

Amazon cut 18000 jobs in January and plans to cut another 9000 in the coming weeks.

But in fact, Amazon recently announced excellent results for the fourth quarter of 2022, exceeding analysts' expectations.

The company's net revenue rose 9% to $149.2 billion, but operating profit fell to $2.7 billion, down from $3.5 billion a year ago.

Overall, Amazon's growth in 2022 was the slowest since it went public in 1997. The e-commerce giant says it is preparing for recession pressures and shrinking consumer spending.

SAP Germany SAP's performance in 2022 was fully in line with expectations, with cloud revenue growing by 24%. The enterprise software company's operating profit also returned to positive growth of 2%.

However, SAP announced 3000 job cuts in January as management hopes to achieve double-digit profit growth by 2023.

Sea Group Singapore technology giant Sea Group made a net profit of $422.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, the first quarterly profit since the company was founded in 2019.

A few days later, Shopee, the company's Indonesian e-commerce company, made a new round of layoffs, affecting fewer than 500 full-time and contract workers.

But according to media reports, the company has cut more than 7000 jobs last year, accounting for about 10 per cent of its workforce.

Other Asian technology companies are not immune.

Indonesia's GoTo Group, Singapore's Carousell and Foodpanda, South Korea's Naver and Kakao have all made layoffs in the past few months.

Dell posted revenue of $102.3 billion in the 2023 fiscal year ended February 3, up 1 per cent from a year earlier. Operating profit for the year rose 24% to $5.77 billion.

The PC maker announced in February that it would cut 5% of its workforce, or about 6650 jobs.

Jeff Clark (Jeff Clarke), co-COO of Dell, said in the memo that the job cuts were intended to "deal with the impact of the downturn cycle in advance".

While revenue grew in fiscal year 2023, Dell's operating profit fell 26% to $1.18 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 as global demand for PC and notebooks shrank.

Apple has not yet launched large-scale layoffs, and its hiring rate is slower than Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.

But the company is also tightening spending.

It is reported that Apple has delayed the payment of bonuses for some employees and restricted recruitment for three months. It is reported that Apple also laid off some contract workers in August.

Revenue, profit and sales fell short of expectations in a number of businesses in the first quarter of fiscal 2023, which ended December 31.

Apple CEO Tim Cook (Tim Cook) blamed a strong dollar, supply chain disruptions and macroeconomic problems.

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