Tech layoffs: TikTok fires entire India team; Yahoo to sack 20% workforce

The tech layoffs wave continues as ByteDance-owned TikTok and American technology major Yahoo have announced job cuts as part of theit cost-cutting measures. 

In India, the short-video platform TikTok, which was banned by the Indian government in 2020, has reportedly fired 40 employees, its entire India workforce. The decision has been taken amidst the ongoing scrutiny and tightening of the Chinese apps. The impacted employees were reportedly working on the Dubai and Brazil markets, following the government’s ban on the Chinese app in India owing to national security concerns. According to the report, the impacted employees have been given 90 days' severance. The development comes a month after, the elevation of Sameer Singh, who joined the short video platform in 2019 to lead the monetisation of TikTok in the country as the head of global business solutions in North America in January this year. 

Meanwhile, Yahoo is planning to lay off more than 20% of its employees by the end of this year as part of its cost-cutting measure. Yahoo plans to begin laying off 1,000 employees beginning this week. The layoffs will impact 50% of the company’s ad tech employees by the end of this year. As per reports, the decision has been taken as the company plans to restructure its ad tech division. The company is planning to focus on its ad business called DSP or demand-side platform. In 2021, private equity firm Apollo Global Management, acquired a 90% stake in Yahoo from Verizon, in a $5 billion deal. 

Global Layoffs

Earlier this week, the U.S.-based media and entertainment behemoth The Walt Disney Company announced reducing the workforce by 3.6% or 7,000 employees as the company looks to cut costs and implement serious strategies to make its streaming business successful. On February 6, PC manufacturer Dell Technologies said it’ll sack 6,650 employees or 5% of its global workforce to counter falling sales.

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.

Last month, Software giants IBM and SAP also announced their plans to lay off employees. IBM Corp sacked 3,900 employees of its global workforce, whereas SAP announced to slash atleast 3,000 jobs or 2.5% of its global workforce. Microsoft also announced that the company will sack 10,000 employees, or about of its global workforce by the third fiscal quarter of 2023, whereas Google will be slashing 6% of its total workforce or around 12,000 jobs globally. Amazon announced layoffs of over 18,000 workers, starting January 18, 2023.

Companies like Meta and Twitter have also said they cut a significant proportion of their workforce to save rising costs amid tough global conditions. Earlier, PC giant HP announced the sacking of 4,000-6,000 employees by the end of fiscal 2025.