Google, Amazon, Apple implements a hiring freeze

After Microsoft, Amazon and Google vowed to limit their expenditures, in the wake of a coming recession, Apple has now joined its Silicon Valley brethren by implementing a hiring freeze.

According to a report, the iPhone maker is going to curb vacancies at certain divisions, though it said it had not adopted a companywide policy.

Recently, Microsoft announced that it was cutting jobs across divisions, including customer and partner contracts company wide. It said the lay-offs would effect less than 1% of its work force. Microsoft said it was doing this to re-align roles after its fiscal year, that ended on June 30.

Microsoft said that it would keep hiring among unaffected divisions, and expected to end the year with an increase in total staff.

Google also announced that they would be slowing hiring down for the rest of the year, to prepare for a potential recession in the coming months. Google will focus on hiring people for engineering, technical and other critical roles through 2022 and 2023.

Amazon was one of the few companies that beefed up hiring during the pandemic to meet high demand, but the move has now left the company overstaffed. It said that its working through the problem slowly. The company is now subleasing warehouses, and has put a hold on development of new office spaces.

India too has seen its share of layoffs and freezes, with many start-ups folding due to financial crunches. According to data by CB Insights, venture funding for Indian start-ups has hit a roadblock, and dropped by $3.6 billion in the second quarter of 2022.