But an opposing trend, which has been gathering steam over the past few months, hasn’t got anywhere near the same kind of attention – or an alliterative moniker.
Let’s call it silent sacking, then.
What’s going on? Tech companies have been in turmoil since the start of the year and Big Tech hasn’t been immune to the carnage.
While smaller companies such as Better.com have announced mass layoffs with alarming regularity, tech giants such as Meta and Google have been more subtle – or underhanded, depending on your point of view – with their staff-cutting. For one, they have studiously avoided using the L-word.
“Restructuring”: Instead, Meta and Google have asked hundreds of employees to re-apply for jobs in their companies, using restructuring as a way to quietly let them go without announcing mass layoffs, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.
In mid-September, Google told its staff at Area 120, its in-house incubator, about a “reduction in force” that would see the incubator halved in size, according to a TechCrunch report. Employees working on the cancelled projects were told they would need to find a new job within Google by the end of January 2023 or be sacked.
And this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would freeze hiring and restructure some teams to trim expenses and realign priorities, according to a Bloomberg report. Meta will likely be smaller in 2023 than it was this year, Zuckerberg said, after what would be the first major budget cut since Facebook was founded in 2004.
Low-hanging fruit: Another tactic that Meta and Apple have used is sacking contract workers rather than full-time employees.
Apple cut over 100 contractor roles from its recruitment arm across several regions, Bloomberg reported in August, and Meta terminated the services of 60 contractors from Accenture the same month.
Large tech firms are “really good with controlling the narrative” and know the word layoff is “a hot button for the press,” Nolan Church, the former chief people officer at Carta, told tech news website Protocol.
Ctrl-Alt-Del: The only Big Tech firm that apparently didn’t get the silent-sacking memo was Microsoft, which laid off 1,800 workers in July and another 200 in August.
Written by Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai
Top Stories By Our Reporters
Ecommerce Corner
BigBasket looks to raise $200 million at up to $3.5 billion valuation: Online grocery BigBasket has kicked off the process for a new funding round that’s likely to value the Tata Digital-owned firm at $3-3.5 billion, three people briefed on the matter told us. BigBasket’s latest financing is likely to come from Tata Digital and existing shareholders. While the size of the round hasn’t been finalised, it’s likely to be around $200 million or more, the people said.
Tatas may bring startup businesses under one roof: Tata Industries is set to hive off some of its significant startup businesses to consolidate the scalable ecommerce entities under one entity.
Tata Digital revenue up three-fold to about Rs 16k crore after acquisitions: Tata Digital, which invests in and operates the Tata Group’s ecommerce vertical, reported a three-fold jump in consolidated revenue to Rs 15,979 crore in financial year 2021-22 (FY22) from Rs 5,315 crore in FY21, according to regulatory filings sourced from Tofler.
Online festive sales, excluding smartphones, up 28% in first two days: The ecommerce festive season sales, which kicked off last Friday, saw an overall volume growth of 28% in the first two days compared to last year, according to data from ecommerce enablement firm Unicommerce. The data does not include smartphone sales.
Reliance shelves ecommerce marketplace plan for third-party sellers: Reliance Industries has shelved its plan to have a separate ecommerce marketplace for third-party sellers, and instead integrated thousands of independent sellers into its existing platform JioMart, two senior executives told us.
Fintech Zone
Tokenisation from October 1, no more extensions, says RBI
The Reserve Bank of India on Friday signalled that it would not extend the October 1, deadline for implementation for tokenisation of card based payments. Deputy governor T Rabi Sankar told reporters that the central bank would not hold back innovation because a few stakeholders weren’t prepared.
Cashfree gets RBI nod for payment aggregator licence: Cashfree Payments has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a payment aggregator, two people aware of the discussion told us.
Razorpay enters rewards management space with PoshVine acquisition: Financial services firm Razorpay has forayed into the loyal and rewards management space with its fourth acquisition this year of loyalty management platform PoshVine for an undisclosed amount.
Tech Policy Update
Govt stands firm on grievance committee for social media complaints
The union government will proceed with its contentious proposal to appoint a grievance appellate committee to decide on user complaints against social media platforms, sources told us.
Govt’s blocking orders violate free speech, Twitter tells K’taka High Court: Twitter India told the Karnataka High Court on Monday that the union government’s order to block accounts on the platform would amount to a violation of free speech guaranteed to Indian citizens under Article 19A.
I-T dept issues notice to seven more online gaming firms for tax evasion: The Income Tax (I-T) department has issued show cause notices to seven online gaming companies and about three dozen high-value players active on their portals, officials with knowledge of the matter told us.
IT Corner
TCS poised to seal likely $2-billion deal for BSNL 4G
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) are in the final stages of closing an estimated $2-billion deal (Rs 16,000 crore) to launch the state-run telco’s 4G network, people in the know told us.
Freshers jittery as IT majors delay onboarding: Freshers are unsettled with the delayed onboarding by India’s top software exporters. After aggressive talent acquisition in the previous fiscal, the four big IT companies are expected to hire a total of 1,55,000 freshers by March 2023, a reduction of over 30%.
IT firms seek legal help to address moonlighting: The furore around moonlighting is now pushing companies, led by IT/ITeS and technology firms, to seek legal help to re-evaluate and redraft existing employment contracts.
ETtech Done Deals
■ Mahindra Logistics (MLL) has acquired the B2B express business of logistics startup Rivigo for Rs 225 crore, the two entities said on Monday. Mahindra Logistics will acquire the business through a business transfer agreement (BTA), including its customers, team, assets, technology platform, and brand. Mahindra Logistics managing director Rampraveen Swaminathan said the Rivigo deal will help the company nearly triple its express delivery business to over Rs 500 crore in a year.
■ Saveo, a B2B ecommerce marketplace for Indian pharmacies, on Wednesday said it has raised $4.5 million in a venture round co-led by Matrix Partners, Gunosy Capital and 4point0 Health Ventures.
■ Digital banking infrastructure provider Signzy has raised Rs 210 crore (or $26 million) from investors led by Gaja Capital to support its expansion plan. Existing investors Vertex Ventures and Arkam Ventures also participated in the round, Bengaluru-based Signzy said.
■ PDigital entertainment and gaming firm JetSynthesys said that it would invest $50 million to boost its metaverse capabilities over the next few years. Rajan Navani, managing director, JetSynthesys said this would be a separate category for the company.
In Other News
Indian startups see no respite from ‘Google tax’ in new billing pilot
Google’s latest offer of a lower commission – as a result of an additional billing choice to non-game developers – will not make much of a difference to the ecosystem as the search giant will still be effectively charging 30% on a larger share of the revenue it generates, Indian startups and developers told us.
Truecaller shares crash as Viceroy Research accuses it of tax fraud: Shares of Stockholm-based Truecaller crashed 20% intra-day after activist short-seller Viceroy Research said in a report that global privacy and data protection laws would soon make its business redundant.
Viceroy raises child safety, data protection of minors in 2nd Truecaller report: After putting the spotlight on potential tax fraud and redundant business model, activist short-seller Viceroy Research turned its attention on Thursday to how Truecaller’s software allegedly collects data of minors.
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