Google headquarters is seen in Mountain View, California, United States on September 26, 2022. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Tech companies have laid off tens of thousands of workers in recent months as the industry grapples with investors’ appetite for less risk and rising borrowing costs. Laid-off workers across the tech sector are entering an uncertain labor market, with headcount reductions occurring across all skill levels and teams. Few companies, with the exception of Apple, have been immune.
Laid-off employees can receive severance packages of varying sizes and lengths, depending on where they work. Here’s what some of the biggest tech names have promised their employees.
Alphabet
Laid-off workers will also have “at least” 16 weeks of vested shares and receive 6 months of health care coverage, he said.
A Securities and Exchange Commission filing from Google parent company Alphabet shared the memo from Pichai but did not specify the cost of the layoffs.
CNBC previously reported that workers had been anticipating layoffs with growing anxiety, and an all-hands meeting in September 2022 where workers pushed back against cutback efforts Pichai expenses.
Microsoft
Wednesday, Microsoft that they were laying off 10,000 workers as the software maker expected slower revenue growth for the coming year. The cuts will take place by the end of March, with a spokesperson telling CNBC that sales and marketing teams would see deeper cuts than engineering.
CEO Satya Nadella said in a staff memo that some would learn this week if they lost their jobs.
US workers who are eligible for benefits are to receive severance, six months of health care and stock investment, and 60 days of notice, Nadella wrote. The Microsoft CEO had already mentioned cost-cutting efforts in an interview with CNBC-TV18.
“We also need to get our own kind of operational focus on making sure that our expenses are in line with our revenue growth,” Nadella said.
Microsoft will take a $1.2 billion impairment charge as a result of its restructuring and layoff efforts.
Amazon
Amazon has been going through continuous layoffs since last year. In November, he began job cuts that had a major impact on units such as recruitment and machinery and services. At the time, the company offered its tools and services workers a severance package that included severance pay, interim health benefits, and job placement.
Earlier this week, it began the latest wave of layoffs, with the deepest cuts seen in its sales and human resources departments.
For retail workers in the US, Amazon is offering full pay and benefits over a 60-day period where Amazon will continue to keep them on the payroll, but they won’t be expected to keep working After that time, Amazon offers laid-off employees several weeks of severance based on their time with the company, severance pay, health benefits, and time and business placement.
Amazon’s severance package appears similar to affected workers in other units. Human resources chief Beth Galetti said the company will provide severance pay, health benefits as appropriate by country and job placement.
It is unclear whether Amazon’s severance package includes any provisions that would allow employees to accelerate the vesting of stock compensation. This is important for Amazon employees, as the company’s compensation has historically weighed heavily on the stock. An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sales force
CEO Marc Benioff told employees on January 4th that Sales force would reduce headcount by approximately 10%, or more than 7,000 employees, in response to a challenging economic environment. Laid-off workers would receive at least “almost” five months’ pay. Benioff’s letter to employees also stated that non-retired employees would receive health insurance benefits and career resources.
A spokesperson told CNBC that severance packages would include six months of health care coverage and “a minimum of two months’ accommodation support.” “
Some workers who lost their jobs were notified on the same day.
“Those outside the US will receive the same level of support,” Benioff wrote. The company expected to take a reduction of one to $1.4 billion related to severance payments and “employee transition” among other things, according to the 8-K filing.
Benioff told employees that more layoffs could be coming, just days after announcing those cuts in January.
Meta
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on November 9 that more than 11,000 jobs would be cut as part of an effort to become a “leaner and more efficient company”. Meta shares had been under pressure for months before, and investors had begun to more actively criticize Zuckerberg’s expensive pivot to virtual reality.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta Platforms Inc., center, leaves federal court in San Jose, California, USA, on Tuesday, December 20, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
At the time, Zuckerberg promised “all” non-retired employees 16 weeks of severance, plus two weeks for each year of service, as well as RSU coverage and health insurance for a predetermined period.
In December 2022, some workers laid off from a non-traditional apprenticeship program told CNBC that they were receiving substandard severance packages compared to other recently laid off workers. . Instead of the 16 weeks promised by Zuckerberg, they only received 8 weeks of basic pay, among other substantial differences.
Under the terms of Musk’s buyout agreement, the new management was to honor existing separation agreements. But a group of Twitter employees filed a lawsuit in November, shortly after the layoffs were executed, accusing Twitter of firing them in violation of California’s layoff notice law.
Musk was has been said before Disaffected employees would receive three months of severance pay, but some Twitter employees said Twitter would only give them one month of severance due to a non-disparagement agreement and legal waiver.
The class action was renewed shortly after it was filed with allegations that Twitter offered half of what was promised to some lay employees.
Twitter also laid off more than 4,000 contract workers without giving them advance notice, CNBC previously reported.
CNBC’s Annie Palmer, Jonathan Vanian, Jennifer Elias, Jordan Novet, Lora Kolodny, Ashley Capoot, and Sofia Pitt contributed to this report.
