Dell to sack over 6,000 employees amid tech layoffs

The heat of tech layoffs has reached the doorstep of PC manufacturer Dell Technologies, which is planning to sack 6,650 employees or 5% of its global workforce as the company witnesses plummeting sales. This comes months after the rival PC giant HP announced the sacking of 4,000-6,000 employees by the end of fiscal 2025, in December last year.

The company announced similar layoffs in 2020 owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. Dell's market conditions reportedly continue amid volatile market scenario and the decision to cut workforce is taken to boost efficiency. With the latest cut, the U.S.-based Dell will reportedly have the lowest headcount of 39,000 employees in six years. The impact of the layoffs in its Indian workforce remains uncertain.

According to the data by International Data Corporation, the company’s PC sales plunged by 37.2% in the October to December quarter to 10.8 million units against 17.2 million units in the same period last year. In the third quarter of FY2022, the company reported a decline of 6% to $24.7 billion in its revenue from operations. The company is yet to release its fourth quarterly results.

The global shipments for traditional PCs, meanwhile, fell 28.1% to 67.2 million units in the December quarter of FY22, as per the IDC report. "Average selling prices (ASPs) across many channels also fell as excess channel inventory over the course of the past few months triggered discounting in an effort to spur demand. Average selling prices (ASPs) across many channels also fell as excess channel inventory over the course of the past few months triggered discounting in an effort to spur demand," the IDC report said. 

 Saga of global layoffs

Last week, Dutch health technology company Philips announced plans to lay off another 6,000 employees or 5% of the company's global workforce by 2025. This will be the second round of layoffs by the company following its decision to slash 4,000 roles in October 2022.

Last month, software giants IBM and SAP also announced their plans to layoff employees. IBM Corp sacked 3,900 employees of its global workforce, whereas SAP announced to slash 3,000 jobs or 2.5% of its global workforce. Microsoft announced to layoff 10,000 employees by the third fiscal quarter of 2023, whereas Google said it'll slash 6% of its total workforce or around 12,000 jobs globally. Amazon also announced layoffs of over 18,000 workers, starting January 18, 2023.

In December 2022, social media behemoth Meta sacked 11,000 employees or 13% of its workforce. Microblogging platform Twitter, now owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, sacked 50% of its workforce and is planning to slash its workforce further. Snap, the parent company of the social media platform Snapchat, sacked 20% of its staff.