Big Tech is firing white-collar workers amid the possibility of an economic recession in early 2023.
Americans are facing the brunt of the mass layoffs at a time when the country is heading toward the holiday season. While workers were supposed to relax on holidays, an overwhelming majority of them will be worried about finding their next job.
White Collar Workers Face Job Insecurity
December and January are considered the most popular months for layoffs in the corporate sector. However, this time, the economic headwinds are making matters worse.
This year, the mass layoffs are different compared to the COVID era. Workers belonging to the hospitality and entertainment industry were worst impacted by the economic downturn. Now, white-collar workers are on the receiving end of the plummeting big tech industries.
Following the Tech Sector, Layoff Contagion Hits Wall Street: Goldman Sachs Plans To Downsize 4,000 White Collar Workershttps://t.co/PKY4c8icFn
— 🇺🇦Lavande du Sud (@LLavandedusud) December 21, 2022
Big Tech companies, which prospered significantly in recent years, are crashing like never before.
The massive layoffs at Meta, a cryptocurrency collapse, a hiring freeze at Google, and Elon Musk’s decision to fire a majority of Twitter employees mean Big Tech is collapsing unprecedentedly.
While addressing the white-collar laid-off workers of his company, BuzzFeed’s CEO, Jonah Peretti, suggested the company would counter the impacts of the prevailing economic downturn by firing people.
The vice president of Complex Networks, David Weinstein, who was also fired from his white-collar job, claimed he was hearing about the massive layoffs in the corporate sector the whole year. However, Weinstein claimed he did not take the layoff news seriously until he became the victim.
Some reports also establish a connection between the changing work ethics of white-collar workers and the recent wave of layoffs.
Reportedly, white-collar workers who still want to work remotely even in the post-COVID times are most prone to be fired. This comes at a time when offices are still seeing reduced attendance of white-collar workers in a majority of cities.
This will be a white collar recession. Most of the layoffs will happen in white collar jobs. So industries that used to be at the end of the layoff cycle will be at the beginning. Most of them should be able to get another job before any foreclosure happens.
— Lars nielson (@Puck66) December 18, 2022
More Bad News To Come for Workers
Apart from white-collar layoffs, the overall economic outlook seems optimistic, however. In all the economic sectors combined, layoffs remain low, as employers are still struggling to find and retain talent.
At the end of October, more than 10 million jobs were vacant in the United States, as per the data of the Bureau of Labor. Though white-collar workers are still in low demand. In law, tech, finance, and engineering, white-collar job openings are touching a new low.
As 2023 arrives, most white-collar workers have vulnerable jobs. At the beginning of 2023, more companies can turn towards cost-cutting methods, as the Federal Reserve is hesitant to bring interest rates down.
With the rising policy rate, companies are forced to fire workers to keep their profits intact.
Many economists have already predicted an economic recession will be inevitable in 2023, which means mass layoffs can impact more workers throughout the economy.
