Big Tech Layoff Storm, Is Only Apple Avoiding It?

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] Amid a wave of layoffs by big tech companies entering austerity management due to the global economic recession, Apple, the leading big tech stock, is not reducing its workforce. Amazon has carried out the largest restructuring in its history, and Microsoft (MS) has announced another round of layoffs exceeding last year's scale, but Apple alone is withstanding the layoff storm.

On the 18th (local time), the US economic media CNBC reported that since last year, big tech companies such as Amazon, Meta, and Twitter have been conducting large-scale layoffs citing the possibility of an economic recession, estimating that the total number of layoffs has already reached around 60,000.

MS announced on the same day that it would lay off 10,000 employees, mainly in the technology sector. Amazon also revealed that it would lay off more than 18,000 employees, nearly double the previously announced 10,000 layoffs, continuing the trend of layoff announcements among big tech companies.

Earlier, Meta, Facebook's parent company, announced layoffs of 11,000 employees, Twitter 3,700, and customer relationship management (CRM) software company Salesforce announced or carried out layoffs of 7,000 employees.

[Image source=AFP Yonhap News]

Apple is the only big tech company that has not announced any layoff plans. CNBC analyzed the reason behind this as "Apple did not significantly increase its workforce during the past two years of the pandemic." Since 2016, Apple's annual hiring growth rate has shown a similar trend.

As of the end of September last year, Apple’s total number of employees, including store staff, was 164,000. During the pandemic, Apple’s workforce increased by only 7,000 to 10,000 annually. This contrasts with Amazon, which hired 500,000 new employees during the same period. The growth rate was only 6.5%, significantly lower than other big tech companies such as Amazon (38%), Meta (30%), and MS (22%).

CNBC analyzed that the rush of layoffs in big tech indicates that the boom of recent years is ending and the industry is entering a recession phase. Big tech companies, which rapidly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, have found it inevitable to reduce their business scale as growth slows due to the economic downturn. Major foreign media reported that with record inflation leading to interest rate hikes and austerity measures by governments worldwide, the recession has become a reality, impacting big tech’s core revenue sources such as online advertising sales and product sales, and that the management difficulties for big tech companies will continue this year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.