Layoffs Reached All-Time High in 2023, India Ranked 2nd After US for Firing 18,000 Employees

Layoff-fyi, a website that tracks jobs globally, has revealed that 2.61 lakh people lost their jobs in 2023. The United States (US) accounted for about 70 per cent of those laid off, followed by India, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (UK).

According to statistics, here are the estimated numbers of individuals fired country-wise:

United States: 179.2 Thousand

India: 16.4 Thousand

Germany: 13.1 Thousand

Sweden: 11.1 Thousand

United Kingdom: 9.4 Thousand

Around 4,700 individuals were laid off in the ed-tech sector, followed by the food (2,765), finance (2,141), retail (1,772), consumer (1,488), and healthcare (991) sectors.

Indian companies have fired around 18,000 employees this year. Here is a look at some big layoffs in 2023 in India:

· Udaan: B2B e-commerce unicorn Udaan fired around 150 employees, or about 10 per cent of its entire workforce, in December 2023. The company has sacked staffers because of a fundamental shift in the way it operates, as per a MoneyControl report.

· Paytm: One 97 Communications, Paytm’s parent company, laid off over 1,000 people in December 2023 across all departments as part of a deliberate effort to streamline its operations and cut expenses.

· Accenture: Accenture Plc fired at least 7,000 of its about 350,000 employees in November 2023 in India as the world’s largest technology services company prepares to let go of 19,000 people, or 2.5 per cent of its global workforce, in the next 18 months.

· Byju’s: The Edtech giant fired the highest number of employees, at 3,500-4,000, in multiple rounds. It sacked nearly 600 employees from its content and marketing teams in October 2023.

· Amazon India: Amazon fired approximately 500 employees in India across several businesses and operations in May 2023.

Layoffs Across the Globe

The year 2023 was an upsetting one for employees in major corporations globally, such as LinkedIn, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, together laying off about 2 lakh people worldwide. In the previous two years, these companies laid off about 4.25 million workers. From 2020 to 2023, around 5.2 lakh individuals were laid off worldwide, with the United States accounting for 66.6 per cent of layoffs, India at 9.1 per cent, and the Netherlands accounting for 3.4 per cent.

LinkedIn, in general, assists people in finding jobs, but it is also on the list of corporations that lay off employees. LinkedIn cut 716 jobs in May of this year across sales, operations, and support teams to streamline procedures and decrease layers to help make faster decisions. LinkedIn let off 668 individuals in October from its engineering, product, talent, and finance teams, marking the company’s second round of layoffs this year.

“Talent changes are a difficult but necessary and regular part of managing our business. The changes we shared with our team today will result in a reduction,” said LinkedIn in its official blog post.