Globally, more employees were laid off in 2023 than during any other year, with more than 2.61 lakh people being handed pink slips by companies, News18 has reported citing layoffs-fyi, a website that tracks layoffs across the world.
At 16,400, India accounted for the second-highest number of job cuts last year, as per the data. The list, however, was topped by the United States, where companies sacked as many as 1.79 lakh employees or 70% of the total global layoffs; Germany, with 13,000 thousand job cuts, was third. Sweden (11,100) and the United Kingdom (9400) rounded off the top five.
Sector-wise layoffs
Sector-wise, 4700 staffers in the edtech sector were laid off, followed by food (2765), finance (2141), retail (1772), consumer (1488) and healthcare (991) sectors.
Major 2023 layoffs in India
While One97 Communications, the parent firm of fintech major Paytm, laid off more than 1000 people in the last week of December, Bengaluru-based B2B startup Udaan fired around 150 workers days before that. US-Irish IT giant Accenture announced 19,000 job cuts; around 40% of is overall workforce is based in India.
Embattled edtech startup Byju’s laid off the highest number of employees (3500-4000) across multiple rounds. E-commerce giant Amazon, meanwhile, reduced its India staff strength by 500.
