Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, US on September 26, 2022 (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Technology companies have laid off tens of thousands of workers in recent months as the industry grapples with lower risk appetite by investors and higher borrowing costs. Laid-off employees across the tech sector are entering an uncertain job market, with headcount cuts being made across all experience levels and teams. Few companies, with the exception of Apple, have been immune.
Laid-off workers will receive severance packages of varying size and duration, depending on where they work. Here’s what some of the biggest tech names promise to their employees.
the alphabet
He said laid-off employees will have “at least” 16 weeks of fast-track stock vesting and have 6 months of Medicare coverage.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Google parent Alphabet disclosed the memo from Pichai but did not specify the cost of the layoffs.
CNBC previously reported that employees were anticipating layoffs with growing anxiety and that at a heated meeting in September 2022, staffers all hands rejected Pichai’s cost-cutting efforts.
Microsoft
Wednesday, Microsoft It said it would lay off 10,000 employees as the software maker forecast slower revenue growth for next year. The cuts will run through the end of March, with a spokesperson telling CNBC that sales and marketing teams will see larger cuts than engineering.
CEO Satya Nadella said in a note to employees that some will learn this week if they are losing their jobs.
Nadella wrote that US benefit-eligible employees will receive severance pay, six months of Medicare and stock entitlement, and 60 days of notice. The Microsoft CEO had already hinted at potential cost-cutting efforts in an interview with CNBC-TV18.
“We’ll also have to have our own kind of operational focus to make sure that our expenses are in line with our revenue growth,” Nadella said.
Microsoft will bear $1.2 billion as a result of the restructuring and layoff efforts.
Amazon
Amazon The renewed layoffs have been taking place since last year. In November, job cuts began that primarily affected units such as staffing, hardware and services. At the time, the company offered its hardware and services employees a severance package that included severance payments, transitional health benefits, and a job placement.
Earlier this week, the latest wave of layoffs began, with the deepest cuts being felt in the retail and HR departments.
For US retail employees, Amazon offers full pay and benefits over a 60-day period, when Amazon will keep them on the payroll but they won’t be expected to continue working. After this period, Amazon will offer laid-off employees several weeks of severance pay depending on the length of time they spent with the company, severance pay, transitional health benefits, and job designation.
Amazon’s compensation package looks similar to affected employees in other units. Chief human resources officer Beth Galletti said the company will provide severance payments and health benefits as applicable by country and job designation.
It’s unclear if Amazon’s severance package includes any provisions that would allow employees to expedite the award of equity compensation. This is important to Amazon employees, as the company’s compensation has historically been weighted heavily to inventory. An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
sales force
CEO Marc Benioff told staff Jan. 4 that sales force It will cut staff by about 10%, or more than 7,000 workers, in response to a challenging economic environment. Laid-off employees will receive a minimum of five months’ pay. Benioff’s letter to employees also said laid-off employees will receive health insurance benefits and job resources.
A spokesperson told CNBC that the severance packages will include six months of healthcare coverage and “at least two months of outside support.”
Some employees who lost their jobs were notified the same day.
“Those outside the United States will receive a similar level of support,” Benioff wrote. The company expected to take $1 billion to $1.4 billion in impairment related to severance payments and “employee transition” among other things, according to the 8-K filing.
Benioff told employees more layoffs may be made, just days after announcing those cuts in January.
meta
CEO Mark Zuckerberg November 9 announced that More than 11,000 jobs will be cut as part of an effort to become a “leaner, more efficient company”. meta Stocks had been badly bruised for several months before that, and investors had begun to criticize Zuckerberg’s extravagant pivot to virtual reality more actively.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Meta Platforms Inc. , center, leaves federal courthouse in San Jose, California, United States, on Tuesday, December 20, 2022.
David Paul Morris | bloomberg | Getty Images
At the time, Zuckerberg promised “every” laid-off employee 16 weeks of severance, plus two weeks for each year of service, plus an award of restricted quota units and health insurance coverage for a predetermined period of time.
In December, some workers laid off from an unconventional apprenticeship program told CNBC they were receiving substandard severance packages compared to those of newly laid off employees. Instead of the 16 weeks promised by Zuckerberg, they received only 8 weeks of base salary, among other material differences.
Under the terms of Musk’s purchase deal, existing severance agreements were to be honored by the new management. But a group of Twitter employees filed a class action lawsuit in November, shortly after the layoffs were executed, accusing Twitter of firing them in violation of California’s notice of layoff law.
Musk was previously said The laid-off employees will receive three months of severance pay. But some Twitter employees said that when they got their termination letters, they were only offered one month of termination in exchange for a non-discrimination agreement and waiving their right to sue the company.
The class action lawsuit was updated shortly after it was filed with allegations that Twitter was offering some laid-off employees half of what they were promised.
CNBC previously reported that Twitter also laid off more than 4,000 contract workers without notifying them in advance.
— CNBC’s Annie Palmer, Jonathan Vanian, Jennifer Elias, Jordan Novet, Laura Kolodny, Ashley Cabot and Sophia Pitt contributed to this report..
