A story of shattered hope behind every pink slip

As thousands were laid off in a Big Tech mayhem, some were left in shock as they never anticipated this would happen to them. They wrote emotional pieces on LinkedIn and Twitter, praying for jobs as they were on short notice in a foreign land.

Shilpi Soni, a software engineer from India, was among those who lost her job at Goldman Sachs, which laid off around 3,200 employees. Impacted by the layoff, Soni took to LinkedIn and shared her situation and how she managed to land a job in the US despite coming from a rural family in India.

"I take pride in being the first person in my family to pursue a Master's in a foreign country. I come from a rural family so it has been one roller coaster of a journey, overcoming social and financial restrictions to come here," Soni wrote in her LinkedIn Post.

Another Indian-origin worker, who lost his job in the layoffs made by Google, said, "He waited for six months to join Google". Kunal Kumar Gupta, a Technical Program Manager at Google in California, writes in his LinkedIn post: "As the news is out that Google has done a 12,000 strong layoff, unfortunately, I have been impacted by the same. After 3 years and 6 months at Google."

Gupta added that he had waited six months to join Google and worked as a Teaching Assistant to maintain his immigration status after graduating from the US-based Carnegie Mellon University in 2019.

Moreover, among Microsoft, which laid off around 10,000 employees, there was an Indian-origin employee who was sacked after giving 21 years of his life to the company.

Prashant Kamani, a principal software development manager at Microsoft in Washington, writes in his post, "Today, I was informed that my position at Microsoft has been eliminated. As I reflect on it today, I feel a sense of gratitude more than anything else. Microsoft was my first job after college, and I still remember coming over to a foreign land all nervous and excited, wondering what life has in store for me." "If you know of people hiring for software management positions, do connect me," he added.

Another Indian-origin worker who got laid off by Microsoft shared her story on LinkedIn in which she said that "she is on visa and has limited time to find a new position". Harshita Jhavar, a data and applied scientist at Microsoft, who spent four years in the company in Washington, writes in her LinkedIn post, "Please help me find a suitable position to connect with a team where I can have a relevant role to play. I will be persistent until I crack my next move".

Apart from Indian-origin workers, there was also an IT professional from Kenya who sold his home and his car to join Amazon in Europe, but was fired just four days before his relocation. Tom Mboya Opiyo was among the 18,000 people impacted by Amazon's mass layoffs.

Impacted by the layoff, Opiyo took to LinkedIn, where he wrote, "Well, last week, I shared about my impending exciting move abroad. It was a relocation role to Europe with a leading global company. "Sadly, it has fallen through due to business changes as part of the organisation's 'annual operating review' that impacted the role and many others."

He added: "We were to travel this weekend so that I start work on Monday, 16th Jan, and the call came 4 days to that date."

Opiyo further said that his family is truly devastated after planning for the move for six months and believes that God will have a better plan for them.