Google, Riot Games, eBay to Amazon - A look at big tech companies that have made layoffs

25.01.2024 - 04:15 / tech.hindustantimes.com / Dan Clancy

A bunch of companies in the technology sector have been laying off some of their employees recently after quickly ramping up hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic while people spent more time and money online. Now, many of them are making job cuts to help lower costs and bolster their bottom lines. Here's some of the companies that have laid of employees of late:

Google said it was laying off hundreds of employees working on its hardware, voice assistance and engineering teams. The cuts follow pledges by executives of Google and its parent company Alphabet to reduce costs. A year ago, Google said it would lay off 12,000 employees or around 6% of its workforce.

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Video game developer Riot Games, which is behind the popular “League of Legends” multiplayer battle game, is trimming 11% of its staff. The company, which is owned by Chinese technology giant Tencent, said 530 jobs were being eliminated, accounting for about 11% of its headcount. The Los Angeles, California-based Riot Games said that it had expanded its investments across too many areas, doubling its staff in a few years, and now was cutting back to focus on games.

TikTok said its shedding dozens of workers in its advertising and sales unit. A spokesperson for the company confirmed that the social media platform is cutting 60 jobs. TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, did not provide a reason for the layoffs.

Online retailer eBay Inc. will cut about 1,000 jobs, or an estimated 9% of its full-time workforce, saying its number of employees and costs have exceeded how much the business is growing in a slowing economy.

Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, is cutting more than 500 jobs in a bid to save on costs. The video streaming platform's CEO Dan Clancy said in an email to employees that even with cost cuts and growing efficiency, the platform “is still meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business.”

Amazon-owned online audiobook and podcast service Audible is laying off about 5% of its workforce. A spokesperson for Audible declined to provide the number of employees who will be affected by the cuts. In a memo sent to employees, Audible CEO Bob Carrigan said that the company is in good shape, but faces an “increasingly challenging landscape.” In addition, Amazon's Prime Video and MGM Studios unit, is trimming hundreds of employees as it cuts back in areas that are not delivering.

Music streaming service Spotify said in December that it was cutting 17% of its global workforce as it moved to slash costs while focusing on becoming profitable. A spokesperson confirmed that the layoffs amount to about 1,500 people. It was the company's third round of layoffs last year.

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