Meta, Google, Netflix: Tech companies are being affected by 'the big freeze', what is it?

2022 thus far has been a bitter year for big tech companies, with the stock of S&P 500, in which big tech names dominate, plummeting in value by as much as 20 percent since the beginning of the year, Protocol reports.

Resultantly, we are experiencing what is being called the 'the big freeze' according to Computerworld, and big company names like Intel, Google, Netflix, Uber, Lyft, and Spotify are all affected, now also Meta is joining the bandwagon.

Meta announces hiring freeze, restructuring, and cutting of costs

Bloomberg reports, after a 'decade of explosive growth'Meta Platforms Inc. the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp is planning to 'trim down'.

According to Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg the CEO of Meta has internally announced plans to freeze hiring and undergo restructuring within the company by cutting budgets and investments to some of the teams that it was backing this period.

Bloomberg reports, that Zuckerberg has said the social giant 'will end 2023 as a slightly smaller organisation’.

Low confidence among tech workers

According to data by Crunchbase, The US tech sector in 2022 alone has experienced over 32,000 layoffs. Also, CNBCreports, citing a survey performed by Blind back in June, reported only 9% of tech workers feel confident in their job security. This is a u-turn from the 1st quarter of the year when Blind recorded an 80% job confidence among workers in the market.

However, it is not all gloomy, according to TechCrunch, a number of top performing venture capital firms this year, which are included on LinkedIn’s top 50 performing companies, have open positions for which surprisingly the overarching majority of positions is based on remote work.

Companies like Brex, Ramp, Gravy, Esusu, Gparency, Deel, and Masterworks have combined ‘125+ open roles; an astounding 87% of those open roles are for remote positions’. TechCrunch reports.

Sources used:

-Protocol: ‘Everything you need to know about tech layoffs and hiring slowdowns’

-Computerworld: ‘Tech hiring enters the Big Freeze’

-Bloomberg: ‘Meta to Cut Headcount for First Time, Slash Budgets Across Teams’

-Crunchbase: ‘Tech Layoffs In 2022: The U.S. Companies That Have Cut Jobs’

-CNBC: ‘Mass layoffs and hiring freezes: Tech workers report huge drops in confidence in job security’

-TechCrunch: 'Despite the venture slowdown, fintech startups are still hiring’

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