2023: Big Techs Will Spend Over $4.7 Billion to Lay Off Employees and Further Cut Some Costs

All Layoffs in Big Tech Aim for Cost Cuts, but They Will Still Impact Finances. According to this survey conducted by Bloomberg, all expenses related to employee layoffs and also severance payments that will be made by Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft may still reach around US$ 4.7 billion.

This survey took into account information regarding the other costs of layoffs published in various recent reports from Big Techs.

In the case of Meta, for example, owner of Facebook, the severances totaled an expense of around US$ 975 million with a cut of 11,000 employees in the fourth quarter of 2022. 

According to the company, part of the amount will still be offset in the coming months with “reduction in payroll, bonuses, and other benefit expenses.” 

Microsoft was one of the other big techs that made layoffs recently. The company, founded by Bill Gates, will still incur a cost of US$ 800 million due to the severance for the layoffs of 1,000 employees, announced in October of last year.

Google Announces Layoff of 12,000 Employees 

In January, the company announced a layoff of more than 10,000 employees, but has not yet revealed the amount it should take from its finances. 

According to Amazon, its severance package expenses totaled US$ 640 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. At the beginning of January, the big tech announced that it would lay off around 18,000 employees across all its divisions worldwide. 

Finally, the parent company of Google, Alphabet, estimates that its layoff package costs will range from US$ 1.9 billion to US$ 2.3 billion. CEO Sundar Pichai announced the layoff of about 12,000 employees, which represents 6% of its total global workforce, in mid-January.