This video presents insights into the people laid off by Big Tech companies like Alphabet,
Microsoft, Meta, and Twitter in late 2022 and 2023. To do this, 365 Data
Science researched 1,157 LinkedIn profiles of professionals impacted by the layoffs.
We collected data on gender, age bracket, position, time spent on the job, total work
experience, educational degree, and whether an individual could find a new occupation and
list it on their LinkedIn profile by January 30, 2023. Company quotas were assigned to limit bias,
and convenience sampling was employed due to data accessibility limitations.
Tech companies—especially Big Tech firms—conducted
a hiring spree during the pandemic as the world moved online. Perhaps in 2022,
they realized this isn’t sustainable in the current economic situation.
For example, the numbers show us that Apple—the company which grew its employee base the
least—has yet to announce any layoffs. Some of the businesses that resorted to
layoffs are very profitable. According to Yahoo Finance,
each of these firms posted impressive trailing 12-month net income results.
Moreover, these entities are famous for their cash-rich balance sheets.
Perhaps the true reason for the layoffs was not a pressing need for financial resources but rather
an adjustment to the new economic reality in which tech firms expect to grow slower due
to an uncertain macroeconomic environment and fears of recession. Therefore, companies try to
be more efficient by cutting personnel costs. This is why we wanted to explore the profile
of individuals impacted by layoffs and provide independently collected data.
Let’s look at the study’s findings and try to understand who was impacted by the layoffs.
Surprisingly, data shows that 56% of all laid-off employees were female. This is
unexpected because Big Tech firms have been famous for their efforts to promote diversity
and decrease the gender gap in the tech sector. According to our research, nearly half of those
impacted are between 30 and 40 years old. More junior hires accounted for 36%, and unfortunately,
even some senior professionals aged 40 to 50 and 50 to 60 were among those who lost
their jobs. This indicates that the layoffs did not convey the letting go of junior personnel.
The average length of working experience in our sample was 12 years—that is,
senior professionals who are typically expected to be more productive and ready to contribute.
On average, the individuals included in our cohort worked for Big Tech companies for 2.5
years before being laid off. This coincides with the lockdown period, which proves the theory that
many who were recruited during the COVID-19 boom are being let go now. Another valid question is
whether big companies managed to onboard these professionals as they should have, as this
probably happened in a remote working environment. Considering the hiring freezes in many companies
that announced layoffs, it isn’t surprising that many HRs and recruiters lost their jobs
amid the 2022 and 2023 job cuts by Big Tech firms. We didn’t expect, however,
to discover those working in HR and recruiting positions to be the most frequently laid
off—accounting for 28%of all layoffs. A close second, software engineering layoffs represented
22%, and marketing came in a distant third at 7%. Moreover, our sample shows that only 16% who were
laid off could add a new job to their resume. If you study data and data science,
perhaps it’ll be a consolation that layoffs of data scientists accounted for only 2.9%.
We hope this video has been helpful to anyone who plans a future career and wishes to understand
the current job market trends. As always, we’re here to support you and teach you the
skills that will bulletproof your career. To learn more about the findings of our study,
feel free to open the article we added in the description of this video.
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