Budget cuts at Big Tech seem to be impacting Indian information technology (IT) players as well. HCL Technologies is learnt to have asked over 300 employees working on Microsoft News products to leave.
When contacted the company did not comment directly on the layoffs, the spokesperson said: “Our Technology & Services vertical continues to see robust growth and is one of the fastest growing segments for us.” Sources in the know said that the people who have been asked to go are from geographies of India, Philippines and Guatemala.
Big tech players like Microsoft, Google and Meta are already asking employees to increase productivity and have also cut on expenses like travel. A few weeks back, the Insider reported that several contract workers for Facebook on content moderation will lose work. The work was done by Accenture, which now has been given to a company based in Singapore. The report also suggested that because of this move, close to 400 employees will get impacted.
Sundar Pichai of Alphabet has also warned employees to raise productivity. He said the company aims to increase overall productivity by 20 per cent. Analysts were of the opinion that these project-wise budget cuts cannot be regarded as overall budget cuts. Earlier US-based retailer Macy’s too had written to its IT vendors that it is cutting discretionary budgets. “We are seeing certain projects getting impacted. This is clearly US centric. Companies want to control costs especially since they’ve invested huge in tech over the last 1.5 years,” said an analyst, requesting anonymity.
