After Microsoft, Twitter and Google, who will cut Ireland’s tech workforce?

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a letter to employees today that the company would lay off 12,000 people, about 6% of its global workforce. Ireland is affected, although specific location details have not been released.

Speaking to people on Barrow Street, the move was not at all surprising. However, there was no prior warning.

The reasons for the layoffs are basically the same as any other multinational tech company.

“There have been periods of dramatic growth over the past two years,” Mr. Pichai said in a letter to employees. “In order to keep up with and facilitate this growth, we have adopted for an economic reality different from the one we are currently facing.”

Please note that this ad is for “staff”. In Ireland, Google Republic employs about 5,000 people, and he employs 5,000 as contractors and freelancers, for a total of 10,000 people.

While details about the restructuring disruption continue to emerge, Google’s restructuring disruption is likely to affect the number of contractors, and Google does not need to report or comment on this figure.

That is, the number of contractors can be between 5,000 and 4,000, but according to global decline, for example, the number of employees of 5,000 reaches 4,700. It partially summarizes the types of work performed by contracting companies (international subcontractors such as Cognizant, Majorel and Accenture) and the agreements between Google and these companies.

But the size of this business, and therefore the number of people doing it, could also be influenced by what Google expects to be “different economic realities.”

We end up with a pretty bad week in terms of job losses in the tech sector. Earlier this week, Microsoft, which recently announced it would increase its workforce in Ireland, said it would cut 10,000 of her jobs, up to 5% of its total workforce.

In fact, it’s usually a sad month. Salesforce said it would cut its workforce by 10% of his, while Amazon said he would lose 18,000 jobs worldwide.

This is a reminder that many technology companies, large and small, are under intense pressure to cut costs.

can i see more? Large multinational companies have a pattern of announcing layoff plans in their quarterly earnings calls. Some big companies are coming up, including IBM (January 25th) and Apple (February 2nd).

Some tech employers planning to expand in Ireland say business is business as usual. A TikTok spokesperson told The Irish Independent on Friday that plans to increase the workforce from 2,000 to 3,000 this year remain unchanged.

Some prominent investors believe there will be more unemployed people.

“The decline in white-collar workers is very real and will continue to rise,” said Silicon Valley veteran Jason Karakanis, who predicted that Facebook, Microsoft and Google will cut jobs this month. ing.

Karakanis is a controversial figure and one of Elon Musk’s reappointed lieutenants on Twitter’s kitchen cabinet, but he has the best nose for broader tech futures than anyone.

If he’s right, 2023 could be worse than 2022.

In response to a question about the issue in Davos this week, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the layoffs of 5-10% of affected companies means that many of them could be placed through voluntary layoffs.

Policymakers say workers in the Irish tech sector remain in great demand. We see this in part in large non-technology companies such as banks, airlines, public sector organizations, and other large institutions that continue to expand their IT capabilities.

This can be seen in the relatively large number of startups still in development. Last month, the Europe-wide Atomic venture capital report showed that Ireland has the highest number of startups per capita in her EU.

Some startup founders even argue that the current layoffs could create employment opportunities. A persistent frustration among local founders is how difficult it is to recruit, with competition from multinationals’ deep pockets and their generous packages. Startups claim hundreds or thousands of premium employees are now available on favorable terms for such ventures.

Ireland has carefully nurtured these giants for decades.

Overall, things still generally look positive. However, there may be more job announcements in the short term.