Google and Wayfair join tech companies announcing big layoffs
BOSTON - Layoffs have been sweeping the country and hit a fever pitch over the last week.
Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Boston-based Wayfair all announced major cuts to their workforce in the last seven days. It has resulted in tens of thousands of layoffs just this month.
Wayfair made its announcement Friday morning that the company will let go of more than 1,700 employees. That's on top of the nearly 900 the company laid off in August of 2022.
In a memo to employees the company said, "These changes reflect efforts to eliminate management layers and reorganize to be more agile."
Peter Ireland has taught economics at Boston College for the past two decades. "There is no way you can spin this as good news," Ireland said. "Those (companies) are all sectors of the economy that really boomed while the rest of the economy was struggling in the pandemic and its aftermath."
Ireland said each of these companies reducing their workforces fall in the category of tech, financial or online retail. All sectors of the economy that flourished during the pandemic and caused rapid hiring trends to keep up with demand.
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, announced a reduction of 10,000 jobs Friday. In a statement to the company Pichai said, "Over the past two years we've seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today."