Layoffs in March 2023: Microsoft, Disney and others

As the global recession continues, major companies around the globe are forced to lay off employees to save costs and deal with uncertain economic conditions. Here are the major companies that laid off employees in March 2023.

Electronic Arts (EA) 
Popular game design company Electronic Arts recently announced that they would be laying off around 6% of the company’s workforce. As per the Wall Street Journal, this amounts to roughly 780 layoffs in the company. Moreover, EA has also announced that apart from the layoffs, they would also be cutting down office space costs to focus their spending efforts on the best possible growth opportunities in the gaming industry. EA has stated that the layoffs have already begun and will continue over the next few financial quarters. EA also plans to restructure its teams to better align with its strategic priorities.

Disney
Disney announced in February that the company would be laying off around 7,000 employees in the near future. As of March 30, the company has started issuing layoff notices to certain employees. Among those recently laid off in Disney, there is Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter, who had originally sold Marvel to Disney back in 2009 for $4 billion. Disney has announced that while a small portion of the 7,000 would be laid off in the last week of March, a large number would be laid off in April, and that the remaining layoffs will happen later in summer. This recent layoff represents 3% of Disney’s global workforce.

Indeed
On March 22, Indeed released a blog post stating they would be laying off around 2,200 employees from the company, which is approximately 15% of their total workforce. The release states that employees have been laid off from nearly every team and department in the company and that the decision was taken keeping in mind the future of the organisation and the company’s strategic priorities. All laid-off employees will be receiving severance pay and some extra benefits.

Amazon
Among other tech layoffs, Amazon announced on March 20 that the company has planned to lay off another 9,000 employees in the coming week. These layoffs are in addition to the previous mass layoffs announced by the company. As per reports, Amazon has made the decision to lay off these 9,000 employees to save costs as well as to be prepared for the uncertain economic future. These March layoffs will impact Amazon’s human resources, advertising, cloud computing, and Twitch live streaming departments.

Meta
Meta released an official blog post on March 14 announcing that the company would be laying off an additional 10,000 employees. This is an entirely new set of layoffs, different from the mass layoffs announced by the company earlier. Moreover, Meta’s plan to hire 5,000 employees in the near future has been cancelled. Meta also announced plans to flatten its organisational hierarchy by removing multiple levels of managers. Bloomberg