TECH COMPANIES are using layoffs as “a way of putting manners” on employees, a Shannon based recruitment specialist has said.
Elon Musk acquiring ownership of Twitter has gained a flurry of media attention. His era with the social media giant is coinciding with a wave of job cuts sweeping through the tech industry in Ireland.
Google is the biggest tech employer in Ireland with 9,000 employees, it says it has no plans of job cuts. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is braced for layoffs among its 6,000 employees in Ireland with 350 jobs at risk.
Cork’s biggest employer is Apple with a headcount of 6,000 no signs of job cuts are imminent but it has decided to freeze recruitment.
Intel have said it will be letting people go but it has yet to announce how many of its 5,000 employees in Kildare will be impacted.
Around 1,000 staff are to be let go by Microsoft worldwide, how many of its 3,500 workforce in Dublin will feel the effects is not clear at present. Cuts are unlikely to Amazon’s 2,500 staff across the country.
Stripe have announced they are set to lose 14 percent of its workforce, the equivalent of 1,000 jobs, some of which will be in its Dublin office which has 550 workers.
TikTok are hiring 2,000 people to join its headcount of 2,000 in Ireland. Enterprise software firm, Workday are also adding 1,000 to its books, with 1,700 persons already employed.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, co-founder and managing director of CareerWise Recruitment, Joe Robbins explained why the tech sector was experiencing difficulties. “There’s several things here, the tech industry is really struggling because of inflation and lack of advertising. We’re seeing layoffs with Twitter and Meta but it’s the same with Intel, Google and Microsoft are also not hiring. The reason is they over-hired and overstocked, they are not as profitable as they were so they are cutting back.
“On the opposite side of things, companies in medical devices and pharma are screaming ahead and will pull a lot of those people that can transfer those skills. The big tech companies they had problems in people refusing to come back to work, people refused to come back to work so they are using it as a way of putting manners on people”.
