Tech layoffs: The growing list of firms reducing their headcounts in Ireland
The Meta Office in Dublin where up to 350 jobs are currently at stake. Picture: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie
Widespread layoffs that began in 2022 are continuing into the new year, with announcements as recent as this week reigniting fears for the future of Ireland's tech sector.
As tech giants saw demand skyrocket during the Covid pandemic, many embarked on sizeable hiring sprees only to later admit that their additional headcounts did not match their future revenue, with many overestimating their growth forecasts for 2022.
Now, in an effort to realign, the sector has experienced mass layoffs, with future outlooks suggesting that these will only worsen in 2023.
Here is a running list of the tech companies that have cut jobs so far.
Meta, who owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp announced last November that it would be cutting 13% of its global workforce, equating to around 11,000 jobs.
Along with a sharp economic downturn in 2022 and increased competition from apps including TikTok and BeReal, the company's shift to its metaverse focus has also been the source of many challenges, with Meta's stock price dropping by 65% in 2022.
Employing 3,000 workers in its Dublin headquarters, approximately 350 of those were said to be impacted by the mass layoffs. Speaking at the time, Mr Zuckerberg took responsibility for the cuts, admitting that he misjudged the surge in e-commerce activity as a result of the pandemic.
In a bid to reduce costs following his $44bn acquisition of the social media site, Elon Musk announced in November that half of Twitter's global workforce would be let go, eliminating 3,500 jobs by email.
Employing around 500 workers in its Dublin office, the company, after much waiting, informed the government that 140 of those would be cut.
Just after a month of being CEO, Musk had his ability to lead Twitter widely questioned, prompting him to release a poll asking users if he should step down as head of the platform, adding that he would “abide” by the result. More than 57% of users said he should step down.
Currently, the billionaire is looking for someone to replace him as CEO in a search that, according to reports, began even before Musk posted the poll.
Widely considered one of the world’s most valuable startups, Irish payment company Stripe announced at the end of last year that it would be cutting 14% of its workforce, amounting to roughly 1,000 workers.
As of November 2022, Stripe employed 600 workers in Ireland, with an email sent by CEO Patrick Collison to employees, admitting that they had been overly optimistic in their growth forecasts which led to excessive hiring in 2022.
The company co-founders added that in addition to the lay-offs, other costs would also have to be firmly reined in as they prepare for “leaner times.”
Employing around 113,700 people globally, chipmaker, Intel announced in October last year that it was planning a major reduction in headcount following warnings that 2022 sales would be about €11.3 billion lower than previously expected.
Employing 5,000 workers in Ireland, the company hopes to save as much as $10 billion by 2025, with the full extent of the layoffs for Irish employees yet to be announced.
Cloud computing giant, Salesforce is the most recent company to announce mass layoffs, reigniting fears regarding the future of tech jobs in Ireland.
Employing 73,541 workers globally, the company announced 1,500 new roles in Dublin in 2019, with plans to expand the company’s Irish workforce to 3,000 over the next five years.
However, following a stark decline in consumer spending, the company's growth has slowed during the past four quarters, posting its weakest revenue increase in the third quarter.
As a result, Co-chief executive, Marc Benioff announced this week that Salesforce would be cutting 10% of its workforce in response to the challenging economic environment, however, it is unknown to what extent this will affect Irish employees.
Announcing two sets of job cuts last year, Irish-owned software company, Intercom let go 10% of its Irish workforce. Laying off 5% last September, the company let go of an additional 5% in November, admitting that they overgrew their headcount too quickly when compared with revenue growth.
Employing roughly 1,000 people globally, 400 of which are in Ireland, the company said it wanted to cut 13% of its global staff, letting go 62 Irish workers in total last year.
Amazon also announced this week that it will be laying off 18,000 of its 1.5m global workforce, roughly 1.2%. Employing around 5,000 workers in Ireland, it is unclear as of yet which divisions will be affected by the layoffs, which are reported to come into effect on January 18th.
American technology company Cisco announced in 2022 that they would be starting a new restructuring plan, that would affect about 5% of employees. The company said it will incur pretax charges of around €567m that would be dedicated to severance, termination and other costs, with employees being offered to option to move within the company.
Global IT company, HP announced that it would be letting go of 6,000 workers over the next three years following falling demand for personal computers which the company said had cut into their profits. The planned job cuts would see their global workforce decline by roughly 10%.
US exercise and equipment company, Peloton let go of 500 employees last year, roughly 12% of their global workforce. As demand fell, company CEO, Barry McCarthy said that the layoffs were needed to ensure that Peloton could break even by the end of the 2023 fiscal year.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
