Microsoft has cut jobs spanning a variety of groups including consulting and customer and partner solutions and were dispersed across geographies. This has been done as the company realigned business groups and roles after the close of its fiscal year on June 30, according to a Bloomberg report.
The report said Microsoft plans to keep hiring for other roles and finish the current fiscal year with increased headcount. “Today we had a small number of role eliminations. Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly… We will continue to invest in our business and grow headcount overall in the year ahead,” according to the report quoting Microsoft’s emailed statement to Bloomberg.
According to another report, Alphabet Inc’s Google plans to slow hiring for the remainder of the year in the face of a potential economic recession, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said Tuesday in an email to staff.
The company will focus on hiring “engineering, technical and other critical roles” in 2022 and 2023. “Moving forward, we need to be more entrepreneurial, working with greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger than we’ve shown on sunnier days… In some cases, that means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes,” according to the report quoting Pichai’s email to the staff.
In India also, several start-ups in recent months laid off employees to cut costs and focus on profitability. Recently, edtech unicorn start-up Byju’s laid off over 600 employees, including both permanent and contractual.
Before Byju’s, new-generation enterprises including Vedantu, Unacademy and Cars24 have also let go of over 5,000 employees in India this year. Ola has laid off about 2,100 employees during January-March this year, followed by Unacademy (over 600), Cars24 (600) and Vedantu (400). This apart, e-commerce firm Meesho has laid off 150 employees, furniture rental start-up Furlenco 200, influencer-led social commerce start-up Trell 300 employees and OkCredit has let go of 40 employees.
Leading venture capital firm Sequoia Capital in its 51-page note recently told founders of its portfolio companies that the era of being rewarded for hypergrowth at any costs is quickly coming to an end with investors shifting towards companies who can demonstrate current profitability. “Capital is becoming more expensive while the macro is becoming less certain, leading to investors de-prioritising and paying up less for growth.”
As far as funding is concerned, Indian startups raised $6.9 billion in 409 funding rounds during April-June 2022, which was down by 33 per cent as compared with $10.3 billion mopped up in the previous quarter. Startup fundraising also declined on a year-on-year (YoY) basis from $10.1 billion, according to Tracxn Geo Quarterly Report: India Tech Q2 2022.
During the March 2022 quarter, the top startups in fundraising include VerSe ($805M- Series J), Delhivery ($304M- Series J), and udaan ($275M- Series D), followed by ShareChat ($255M- Series G) and upGrad ($225M- Series F).
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