After big tech companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft, now IBM Corp and German software firm SAP have also laid off. According to reports, IBM Corp has laid off 3,900 (1.5%) employees out of its total global workforce. At the same time, SAP has made a plan to lay off 3,000 (2.5%) employees.
IBM said it announced the layoffs as part of asset divestment. Actually, the company took this decision after missing its annual cash target in the fourth quarter. The company's chief financial officer, James Kavanaugh, said the company remains committed to hiring for clientfacing research and development.
IBM said the layoffs are related to the spinoff of its Kinderill business and a portion of AI unit Watson Health, which will take a $300 million charge in the January-March period.
At the same time, SAP has taken this decision of layoffs to cut costs and focus on its cloud business. The company says that it wants to strengthen its core business and has also planned a targeted restructuring program to improve efficiency.
Before IBM and SAP, many companies in the tech industry like Google, Amazon, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft and Spotify have also made large scale layoffs due to cost cutting. According to a Bloomberg report, Spotify will announce the layoffs earlier this week. It is being told that Spotify may lay off 6% of its total workforce (9,800 employees).
At the end of last week, Google's parent company Alphabet Inc announced that it would lay off 6% of its worldwide total workforce ie 12,000 employees. Earlier, Microsoft Corp announced 11,000 (5%) and Amazon laid off 18,000 employees.
At the same time, Meta, the parent company of the social media platform Facebook, laid off 13% of its total workforce i.e. 11,000 employees in November last year. Before Meta, Twitter had fired 70% of its total workforce of 7,500 employees i.e. about 5,200 employees. After the layoffs, only 2,300 employees are left in Twitter.
