Twitter, Lyft, Stripe… Bloody week for Tech jobs

It’s a disaster in Silicon Valley. This week’s layoff announcements hit levels not seen among tech companies since the start of the current crisis, as consumer confidence worsened sharply in October and the fall in home prices continued. . The trade deficit widened for the first time this year in September and in the face of inflation, the Fed raised its key rate by another 75 basis points on Wednesday. On Wall Street, the Nasdaq index is down nearly 5% this week. It has lost 35% since the beginning of the year. Business owners fear a recession in 2023.

What a grand exit plan

This Friday, these are the employees of Twitter who will learn via email whether they will continue the adventure with their new boss Elon Musk, or not. Layoffs must begin now and according to Washington post, the billionaire plans to lay off half of the social network’s 7,500 employees, seeking according to Reuters to cut costs by $1 billion a year. According to Bloomberg, a class action has been launched by Twitter employees, accusing their “Chief Twit” of not respecting the legal notice period.

Thursday, we learned of two more plans for massive job cuts. In the house of Drawing, the payment fintech, will lay off 14% of its workforce, or more than a thousand employees. And in Lyftthe VTC company, which announced a 13% reduction in its staff, or nearly 700 job cuts.

Another plan of several hundred job cuts was announced this week. Right by raising interest rates, proptech open doorwhich buys and resells residential real estate, has decided to lay off 550 employees, 18% of its workforce.

And then, even last week, we couldn’t ignore the 3000 job cuts announced by the world’s largest hard drive manufacturer. Seagateor 8% of its workforce worldwide.

Bleeding into fintech and crypto

Stripe isn’t the only fintech on this doom list. fintech in banking Chemistry will reduce its workforce by 12% by laying off 150 people, The Information reports. Chargebee, which provides SaaS billing solutions for subscriptions, is laying off 10% of its employees, or 140 people. Same number of redundancies in to begin with, lending platform based on artificial intelligence, representing 7% of its workforce.

In the world of alternative finance, crypto also had its fair share of announcements this week. the American Galaxy Digital A reduction of 15 to 20% of its essential forces is contemplated according to Bloomberg. The Canadian Dapper Labs, a specialist in NFTs (Cryptokitties, NBA Top Shot), is letting go of 22% of his staff, Betakit has learned. The trading platform Bitmex (registered in Seychelles) and the American Digital Currency Group (Coindesk) has also restructured, according to information from The Block and Bloomberg.

In Europe too

The week did not survive the European Tech, since the Swedish Kry, known in France as Livi, which develops teleconsultation platforms, has announced the elimination of 300 positions, or 10% of its staff. The company raised $160 million last July. He is set to leave Germany this month.

Danish Pleo, a Spendesk competitor that launched in France in July, is cutting 150 jobs, equivalent to 15% of its workforce. And German fintech Smava, credit expert, parting ways with a hundred people according to Business Insider.

When we don’t leave, we freeze recruitment

Inevitably, start-ups positioned in the recruitment market are feeling the effects of the tsunami. jewelwhich provides HR software, announced the layoff of 100 people this week, or a third of its workforce according to The Information.

It also makes people redundant in the HR teams of start-ups, such as in CloudKitchesthe dark kitchen startup launched by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, has fired 30 recruiters according to Business Insider.

Along with a wave of job cuts, two giants announced new recruitment freezes this week. This is’Amazon, which decided to freeze hiring at headquarters, in all its activities. So far, the suspensions only concern its e-commerce activities. and D’Appleexcluding R&D activities according to Bloomberg.