The tech world is dominating the headlines right now, and for all the wrong reasons.
As of late, there has been a wave of job losses at the hands of behemoth companies that need no introduction, like Google, Amazon and Microsoft.
On Friday, Google announced they were laying off 12,000 employees, which translates to six percent of their entire workforce.
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a news blog that over the past two years they’ve seen “periods of dramatic growth,” and to fuel that growth they “hired for a different economic reality than the one [they] face today.”
Pichai also shared that all employees will be paid for a minimum of 60 days, receive a severance package starting at 16 weeks salary, plus two weeks for every additional year at the company.
They will also be paid their 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time.
This round of firing came just two days after Amazon slashed 18,000 jobs in Canada, the U.S., and Costa Rica.
And that very same day Microsoft laid off 10,000 workers.
According to the Associated Press, the company said in a regulatory filing that the layoffs were in response to “macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities.”
Since the news broke, many Canadian employees have taken to social media to share the status of their employment, how they feel about the decision, and what’s next.
Greater Toronto Area resident Harjot Dhinsa, who worked at Amazon for nearly three years in both human resources and technical recruiting, shared to LinkedIn that she is having a hard time following the news.
“I don’t have much to say at this point as I’m going through an emotional roller-coaster. Trying to stay hopeful and positive in this difficult time,” Dhinsa wrote.
“I believe everything happens for a reason and this too shall pass.”
B.C resident Vishal Soni worked as the senior product manager for Amazon for the last six months. He also shared the news of his layoff on LinkedIn and said it was a “double blow.”
According to him, his wife was impacted by the layoffs at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, a few months back.
“Having lost both our jobs is a bigger punch in the gut than we imagined. However, hopefully life has something better in store for us,” he said.
Ranajiit Saha, also from B.C., shared that his role as a machine learning scientist came to a halt after being employed for nearly a year and a half.
Saha transitioned from Microsoft India to Microsoft Canada just a little over two months ago.
“This news has hit me hard and made everything uncertain for me. I am actively looking for a job in the tech domain. The situation has been made worse since my wife had to resign from her stable job in India to move along with me. She sacrificed her career for the sake of mine,” he shared.
