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US layoffs in January 2023 at two-year high, experts predict

 




• The massive layoffs come as consumer and corporate spending slumps due to high inflation and rising interest rates.

The employment sector in the United States has seen two contradictory figures in the period December 2022 to January 2023, in which the US economy registered an increase of 11 million in job openings in December, while on the other hand, layoffs in the US also affected more . from a two-year high in January 2023.

According to a report published by Layoffs.fyi, big tech in its effort to build a strategic resistance to a projected impending recession has laid off massive and extremely fast layoffs in the US job sector, affecting 102,943 workers.

The report further states that the number of layoffs is set to more than double from December 2022 and marks an increase of nearly five years compared to the number recorded in 2021. The report was filed by employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Meta cut thousands of jobs to strengthen and maintain the functioning of their 'core structure'. In view of the decrease in demand, companies laid off thousands of employees.

The massive layoffs come as consumer and corporate spending slumps due to high inflation and rising interest rates.

Many experts have attributed the austerity measures to drive increased demand for large-scale hiring by companies during the Covid pandemic lockdown.

The report clarifies that the need to fix excesses in the time of the pandemic has been most pronounced among tech companies followed by retailers. The report states that the tech sector lost 41,829 jobs last month, the most among all industries.

Retail followed suit by slashing 13,000 positions in January 2023. Financial firms also jumped ship and eliminated 10,603 jobs last month, up 696 roles from a year ago.

Interestingly, it should be noted that for 18 straight months, employers have posted at least 10 million openings — a number never reached since 2000 — before 2021, according to Labor Department data. The number of openings in December meant that there were roughly two vacancies for every unemployed American.

On Wednesday, the AP reported that employers in the US hired 6.17 million workers in December, up from 6.03 million in November. The US job market has seen a significant upheaval, with the initial wave of mass resignations cooling off until December 2022.

In January 2022, technical layoffs were marked at 510 as against 84,049 in January 2023. In Kovid-19 and technical layoffs increased from 9628 in the first quarter of 2020 to 84,374 in the first quarter of 2023.

Furthermore, retail saw the most layoffs in 2022, with an alarming 20,014 layoffs in 2022 as compared to 8,002 in 2020.

According to the report, Google still takes the crown for the highest layoffs, eliminating 12,000 employees from its San Francisco office, followed by Meta (11,000), Microsoft (10,000) and Amazon (10,000).

While these are the numbers for Amazon layoffs in 2022, the e-retail platform slashes 8,000 more jobs in 2023.

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