Big Tech cuts jobs as market caps suffer

Big Tech companies have been forced to cut jobs as market caps continue to be slashed as momentum slows.

As reported by the Financial Times, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta have collectively seen $2.1tn wiped off their market capitalisations in recent months.

For Meta, this has translated into cutting back on its aggressive hiring spree, with the company’s chief financial officer David Wehner stating “we need to take another look at our priorities and make some tough decisions”.

Despite Facebook’s parent company recruiting more employees in the first quarter of this year than in the whole of 2021, the overarching theme for the company was that sacrifices would need to be made as the firm grows its metaverse offering.

“This will affect almost every team in the company”, he wrote in the internal memo seen by the FT.

Meanwhile, Twitter execs recently said the company would be “pulling back on non-labour costs to ensure we are being responsible and efficient”; this comes despite Elon Musk’s grand ambitions for his $44bn takeover.

Uber chief Dara Khosrowshahi heralded a change of tack last week when he sent an internal email to staff entitled “the next (best) chapter”, signalling a new era of cost cutting.

Discussing the “seismic shift” that has occurred in the ride-hailing space, Khosrowshahi emphasised the centrality of shareholders in the company’s ongoing journey.

He wrote: “Please bear in mind that while investors don’t run the company, they do own the company – they’ve entrusted us with running it well”.

“Channeling Jerry Maguire, we need to show them the money”, he added.

He suggested that cost-cutting may be on the company’s horizon, and stated: “We will treat hiring as a privilege and be deliberate about when and where we add headcount”.