Neowin

In this editorial, I argue that big tech companies are making the right decision by making sweeping job cuts, despite being hard to do and hard on the people whose lives are affected as a result.

As part of its layoffs, Meta let engineers go who were working on a fact-checking feature for Facebook. The feature has now been scrapped but would have added fact-checking comments above articles.

The Sega-owned game developer Relic Entertainment stated today it had laid off 121 of its team members, only a few months after it launched its latest game, the WWII RTS Company of Heroes 3.

Ubisoft has confirmed it could lay off as many as 60 members of the game publisher's Customer Relations Center team, which are based in Cary, North Carolina, and Newcastle in the UK.

LinkedIn is shutting down its China-focused local jobs app called InCareer, which will result in the departure of 716 employees from the company. The operations will wind down by August this year.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, in an interview with Bloomberg, said that the company is no longer planning to hire jobs that can be automated using artificial intelligence tools, impacting around 7,800 jobs.

Lyft is preparing to lay off more than 1,000 employees in a mission to cut costs and become profitable. This represents a 30% cut in staff numbers. Employees will hear more next Thursday.

Microsoft has emphasized the importance of its Responsible AI principles. This comes at an interesting time considering it recently laid off its Ethics and Society team responsible for ensuring this.

The job cuts are being considered a streamlining effort by Apple, who until now had not made any moves to lay off employees in the last several months, unlike most major technology companies.

Internal memos and companywide emails show that Google is trying to save money by cutting back on certain items and employee services which include getting Chromebooks instead of Apple MacBooks

Virgin Orbit is laying off 85% of its workforce after it was unable to secure funding. This means 675 people will lose their jobs. The redundancies will likely be completed by April 3.

The latest job cuts are still among the 10,000 employees that Microsoft said it would lay off a few months ago. The company said it would finalize those job cuts by the end of Q1 2023.

About 100 ex-employees who were laid off while on paid leaves are writing to Google asking the company to follow their agreements and pay the rest of the due amount on their leaves.

Although Apple is yet to conduct major layoffs (unlike its other big tech counterparts), it is enacting certain cost-cutting measures such as delaying some bonuses and slowing down hiring.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed previous rumors that the parent company of Facebook and Instagram will lay off another 10,000 employees on top of the 11,000 employees let go in November 2022.

Microsoft has laid off its entire ethics and society team within the AI department, according to a recent report. Despite this, the company says that it remains committed to responsible AI.

The parent company of Rockstar Games, 2K Games, Zynga, and Private Division will lay off an unknown number of employees, mostly in its "corporate operations and label publishing" divisions.

In order to make 2023 a "year of efficiency", Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is looking to lay off thousands of employees, potentially within the next week or so, in order to meet financial targets.

Twitter has laid off more people during the weekend, according to a recent report. This included product manager Esther Crawford, who spearheaded Twitter Blue and the upcoming payments platform.

Ericsson has sent out an internal memo announcing it'll lay off 8,500 employees worldwide. The move is part of the company's cost-cutting strategy due to slow demand for telecom equipment.

Google sent out a memo to some employees, asking them to share their desk space with other workers on days when they are not working in the office. This is being done to cut costs at the company.

Communication and marketing software company Twilio is set to cut a significant portion of its workforce. This comes after the company already laid off more than 800 people back in September.

The LinkedIn layoffs specificially hit the recruitment division of the business-themed social network. Specific numbers or percentages of workers affected by the layoffs were not revealed.

After laying off more than 11,000 people a few months ago, Meta is reportedly preparing to announce a fresh round of layoffs. In line with this, the company has been delaying the approval of budgets.

Another company in the tech industry has announced a round of layoffs as GitLab, key competitor to Microsoft's GitHub, confirms that it will be reducing its team size by 7% overall.

Yahoo has joined the list of tech companies eliminating thousands of employees for strategic reasons. In an interview, Yahoo executives inform that the company is eliminating 1600 employees.

This is the latest mass layoff in the tech industry, as the developer software hosting company GitHub will close all of its offices and its remaining staff will now work remotely to save money.

Disney+ has lost more than 2 million subscribers for its Disney+ streaming service. The company will also lay off 7,000 employees as a move to make its streaming business profitable.

Today's Zoom layoffs will affect 1,300 employees at the online video conferencing software company, which got a big boost in use during the Covid-19 pandemic in the last few years.

The 6,650 people affected by the Dell layoffs will hit 5 percent of its total workforce. The decision comes as PC sales as a whole got hit with large reductions in the fourth quarter of 2022.

PayPal has become one of the latest firms to announce major layoffs. The payments platform says that it will let go of 2,000 employees in the coming weeks in a bid to reduce operating expenses.

343 Industries had reportedly lost almost 100 developers in the latest layoffs round of Microsoft. Going forward, the shooter franchise is said to be switching to Unreal Engine and ditching Slipspace.

Two engineers at Google revealed insights on the after-effects of the lay-offs on the existing staff at the company. They shared that losing 12,000 employees has been overwhelming for many.

IBM will lay off about 3,900 of its employees, equivalent to about 1.5% of the company's workforce. The tech firm will spend about $300 million to pay for the severance of eliminated staff.

Crypto exchange Luno has decided to cut 35% of its staff as economic headwinds take their toll. Luno is one of the many subsidiaries of Digital Currency Group, which also owns ailing Genesis.

Following the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, Spotify has also announced its own round of layoffs. The company will let go of 6% of its workforce as a way to significantly reduce costs.

Spotify is set to let go of some of its staff this week, according to a Bloomberg report. The firm joins the likes of other tech companies who also bade goodbye to a significant number of employees.

Halo studio 343 Industries was the center of rumors this week saying the shooter franchise's development will be moved to other studios, but an official announcement has dispelled these reports.