Biden's economy: Major companies continue to lay off thousands of workers as recession worsens
By jdheyes // 2023-01-24
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The Democratic left's grotesque hypocrisy continues to be exposed the longer Joe Biden's disastrous presidency lasts. The deep state-aligned 'Justice' Department only cracks down on conservatives; Biden's document scandal is getting worse without much of a mention in the Democrat-aligned press; two quarters of negative growth is no longer considered the telltale sign of a recession; and now Biden's tanking economy has led to a massive increase in layoffs by major companies, which would have been top-of-the-hour news for weeks on end if a Republican president were in the White House. As reported by Fox Business, "large companies across various sectors are laying off workers at staggering rates, putting the state of the economy in question." The outlet continues: Among the latest announcements is Microsoft, which said Wednesday the company plans to cut 10,000 workers after shares of Microsoft fell more than 20% during the past 12 months. An even bigger round of layoffs went into effect this week at Amazon after CEO Andy Jassy announced this month that roughly 18,000 workers would be let go, mainly from the retail division and PXT (People Experience and Technology), which deals with human resources and other matters. "Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so," Jassy wrote in a blog post on Jan. 4. "These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure." The downsizing trend is actually months old. Facebook parent company Meta noted in November that 11,000 jobs were on the chopping block as the company also implemented a hiring freeze for the first quarter of 2023. "I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time. "I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted." Zuckerberg also pointed to the aftermath of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdowns. According to him, the public health mandate triggered a surge in e-commerce activity – leading him to project a bigger-than-expected growth in revenue. “Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected.” Other reports, meanwhile, honed in on the company’s heavy investment in the Metaverse that utilizes virtual reality and augmented reality headsets. The endeavor has cost Meta $9.4 billion for 2022 alone, with the company anticipating that losses “will grow significantly year-over-year.” The Meta CEO noted in a call with analysts that the company plans to “focus investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas” this year. “That means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year. In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today,” he added. But there has been more hemorrhaging of jobs, especially in the tech sector. Alphabet, Google's parent company, has slashed 15 percent of the staff at health sciences division Verily, which impacted 200 jobs. In an email to employees last week, CEO Stephen Gillett noted that the staff reduction means work will stop on the Verily Value Suite medical software and other products that were early in their developmental stages, according to The Wall Street Journal. Twitter, Salesforce and others were laying off as the end of 2022 approached. Around 100,000 employees have lost their jobs since the beginning of last year, including 20,300 employees in November alone. Despite the layoffs, the White House tweeted an Orwellian message, saying, remarkably, that is cause for "optimism" when it comes to the economy. In addition, the post featured an image of an "Economic To-Do List," which included the items "Create good jobs" and "Keep a strong job market." Sources include: FoxBusiness.com CNBC.com
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