Indian woman laid off by Goldman Sachs in US: 'I come from a rural family'

Shilpi Soni, who lost her job at Goldman Sachs, is in the US on an H-1B visa. (Image credit: Shilpi Soni/LinkedIn)

Goldman Sachs on Wednesday began its job cuts that is feared to affect some 3,200 employees or nearly 6.5 per cent of its workforce. This is the biggest round of layoffs by the investment giant.

Affected employees began taking to LinkedIn, looking for new jobs. Among those impacted are Indian workers in the United States, who are on H-1B visa.

Among those who lost their jobs at Goldman Sachs is Shilp Soni, a software engineer from India, who spent 1.7 years in the company in Texas. She spoke about “how quickly life can turn upside down”.

“I take pride in being the first person in my family to pursue a Masters in a foreign country. I come from a rural family, so it has been one roller coaster of a journey, overcoming social and financial restrictions to come here,” Soni, who is on an H-1B visa, wrote in a moving post on LinkedIn.

“Knowing from where I started, being laid off hurts. But, I am still hopeful that this may not be the end of my journey here in the US. So, I have decided to keep fighting and make use of my limited time to find a new job.”

For Chinese worker Yujie Liao, losing her job at Goldman Sachs came just a month after losing her grandfather. She couldn’t fly back to her home country because of her work.

“Because of my work and the policy in the firm, I couldn't go back to my country to see him one last time. I thought this must be the toughest time. Everything will be better from now,” the business intelligence analyst wrote on LinkedIn.

“At the beginning of 2023, I was also impacted by the layoffs at Goldman Sachs before my 25 birthday. Wow, this is a truly different way to start a year.”

Amid the job cuts, Goldman Sachs is reviewing its expenses, including the two private jets it bought and CEO David Solomon’s private jet trips, Financial Times reported.

"We're looking at expenses in every corner of the firm, so it's ridiculous to focus on any single segment or item," a company spokesperson told the BBC.

The Wall Street firm has a workforce of 49,000, up 34 per cent since the end of 2018.

Tens of thousands of people across the world have lost their jobs in the past few months as global technology giants are on a layoff spree globally. Amazon, Meta, Twitter, Stripe, Lyft, Affirm and CloudKitchens are among companies that have sacked employees recently or frozen hiring in the face of sluggish consumer spending, higher interest rates and surging inflation worldwide.