Twitter, Meta, Disney on sacking spree: How global tech layoffs are impacting Indians

Twitter reportedly sacked the whole marketing and communications department in India after the laying off began in the country. The microblogging site is said to have fired 180 out of the 230 employees in the marketing, communication, and some other departments in India.

Twitter is also said to have sacked nearly 4,400 of its contractual workers, according to a Platformer report on November 14. It added that out of Twitter’s 5,500 contract workers, these 4,400 discovered that they were laid off after they lost access to Slack and some other work systems.

Straits Times reported that those impacted in Singapore due to layoffs by Twitter were from its engineering, sales and marketing teams.

On November 14, Walt Disney also announced to freeze hiring and cut some jobs as it strives to move the Disney+ streaming service to profitability against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

Chief Executive Bob Chapek sent the memo to Disney's leaders, saying the company is instituting a targeted hiring freeze and anticipates "some small staff reductions" as it looks to manage costs.

Also read: Disney plans to freeze hiring and cut some jobs, memo shows

Moreover, Cognizant India has said that it had a 6 percent involuntary attrition during July-September, as per an ETNow report.

Moneycontrol couldn't independently verify these reports.

Separately, Cognizant India and Accenture India also sacked people after several cases of forged documents and fake experience letters surfaced.

Cognizant India’s head Rajesh Nambiar said that there was high involuntary attrition due to failed background checks, as per the report. The numbers of terminations due to failed background checks and moonlighting have increased over the last few months. As companies resume work-from-office, background checks are increasing, making such incidents more common.

Accenture India also fired some employees after it found that they had forged their documents. In a statement, it said, “We have taken action to ensure that there will be no impact on our ability to serve our clients.”

Beyond fake letters and forged documents, companies have sacked employees primarily to cut down on costs that have affected thousands of workers.

Also read: Life after a layoff: You’ve just been fired. Now what?.

On November  10, the Daily Mail reported that tech giant Amazon has also joined the layoff spree and will be undertaking a review of its unprofitable businesses, including the devices unit that houses voice assistant Alexa, to cut costs.

Such a step could possibly affect hundreds of professionals across countries, including India.

Other IT companies such as Singapore-based gaming and ecommerce powerhouse Sea Limited and Shopee also made two rounds of cuts in June and September and revoked job offers.

Startups in Singapore were particularly badly affected due to a fall in venture capital funding levels this year. According to a Crunchbase report, funding in the region dropped by 7 percent in the first quarter of 2022 to $36.3 billion compared to the same quarter last year.

Experts believe that such mass layoffs are a result of several tech companies expanding rapidly during the COVID pandemic. This coupled with inflation and rising interest rates have increased pressure on all tech companies.

This story has been amended since publication after Accenture clarified that it had sacked people for a misdemeanor and did not lay them off owing to a change in business environment. The company also said these sackings were not "huge".